Old  Masters  and  New 


KENYON  COX 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
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I 


VERONESE:  “MARTYRDOM  OF  ST,  GEORGe'’^ 


OLD  MASTERS 
AND  NEW 

/ 

Essays  in  Art  Criticism 

i 

1 BY 

) 

KENYON  COX 


NEW  YORK 

FOX,  DUFFIELD  & COMPANY 
1905 


Copyright,  1905,  by 
Fox,  DuFFIELD  & COMPANl- 
Published  March,  1905 


■Cjcrr-"" 

GETTY  f"*  ” 


■ ’■  } I-  r'  f*  p%/- 


TO  JOHN  LaFARGE 

who  best,  in  our  day  and  country,  has  exercised  the  right  of 
the  artist  to  speak  on  his  art,  these  essays,  with  which  he 
will  not  always  agree,  are  respectfully  inscribed  by 

Th£  Author 


1 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  ART 


ORK  thou  for  pleasure ; paint  or  sing  or 


The  thing  thou  lovest,  though  the  body  starve. 
Who  works  for  glory  misses  oft  the  goal ; 

Who  works  for  money  coins  his  very  soul ; 
Work  for  the  work’s  sake,  then,  and  it  may  be 
That  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  thee. 


carve 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

PAGE 

SCIILPTORS  OF  THE  EaHLY  ItALIAN  ReKAISSAXCE  ....  3 

Perugino 11 

Michelangelo  . . . 18 

The  Pictures  or  Venice  48 

Veronese 63 

Durer 89 

Rubens 96 

Frans  Hals 104 

Rembrandt 

William  Blake 127 

PART  II 

Painting  in  the  Nineteenth  Centdbt  •••,•,  135 

Ford  Madox  Brown  and  Prerafhaelitish 149 

Millais 

Burne-Jones 

Meissonier 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Baudry 193 

Puvis  D£  Chavaknes 210 

Whistler 227 

Sargent  255 

The  Early  Work  of  Saint-Gaudens 266 

Saint-Gaudens’s  “Sherman”  278 

Index 


287 


LIST  OF 
ILLUSTRATIONS 


Veronese;  Martyrdom  of  St.  George  . . . FRONTiapiECS 

Perugino:  Virgin  and  Child Facing  page  16 

Michelangelo:  Libyan  Sybil “ " 38 

Tintoretto:  Pallets  driving  away  Mars  . . . “56 

Key  to  Composition  of 

Veronese’s  Marriage  in  Cana “ “80 

Durer:  Melencolia 

Rubens:  The  Garden  of  Love ” “ 102 

Hals:  St.  Adraen’s  Shooting  Guild " “ 110 

Rembrandt:  The  Syndics “ “ 122 

Prudhon:  L’Enlevement  de  Psyche “ “ 136 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Millais:  The  Huguenot “ “ 166 

Burne-Jones;  The  Annunciation “ “ 180 

Baudry:  Pastoral  Music “ “ 204 

Puvis  DE  Chavannes;  The  Sacred  Wood  . . . “ 222 

Whistler:  The  Mother  .........  “ “ 242 


Saint-Gaudens:  Sherman 


278 


PART  I 


Old  Masters  and  New 


SCULPTORS  OF  THE  EARLY  ITALIAN 
RENAISSANCE 

Donatello,  Verrocchio,  della  Robbia,  Mino 
da  Fiesole,  Benedetto  da  Majano — their  very 
names  are  as  music  in  our  ears,  calling  up 
visions  of  ineffable  grace  and  beauty.  Their  charm- 
ing art  has  influenced  the  best  art  of  our  own  day 
more,  perhaps,  than  any  other.  From  the  time  when 
Paul  Dubois  turned  to  them  for  inspiration,  and  pro- 
duced his  little  “ Saint  John  Baptist  ” and  his  ‘‘  Flor- 
entine Singer,”  a new  and  brilliant  epoch  of  French 
sculpture  began,  and  Falguiere,  Mercie,  and  the  rest 
of  their  school,  with  such  men  of  our  own  as  Saint- 
Gaudens,  French,  and  Adams,  owe  much  of  what  is 
purest  and  best  in  their  work  to  the  study  and  the 
example  of  these  old  Italians.  Many  even  of  the  best 
painters  of  to-day  would  own  their  deep  indebtedness 
to  the  “ sweet  influences  ” of  this  placid  constellation 
shining  serenely  through  the  ages. 

Since,  then,  the  work  of  these  men  is  so  great  a 
factor  in  moulding  the  art  of  to-day, — since  they  have 
had,  and  still  have,  so  eminently  healthful  and  invig- 


4 EARLY  RENAISSANCE  SCUPTURE 


orating  an  influence  upon  contemporary  sculpture,  — 
it  may  be  well  to  consider  them  somewhat  closely,  to 
endeavour  to  comprehend  their  aims  and  their  methods, 
and  to  find,  if  possible,  the  secret  of  that  subtle, 
evanescent,  yet  enduring  charm  which  steals  upon  the 
senses 

“Like  the  sweet  South 
That  breathes  upon  a bank  of  violets 
Stealing  and  giving  odours.” 

To  do  this,  we  will  begin  at  what  may  seem  at  first 
a long  distance  from  the  subject. 

It  has  often  been  remarked  that  the  schools  of 
painting  in  which  colour  has  been  predominant  have 
been  the  great  naturalistic  schools  as  well,  and  there 
have  been  various  speculations  as  to  the  cause  of  this 
fact.  Ruskin’s  theory,  that  the  production  of  beau- 
tiful colour  requires  an  absolute  fidelity  to  nature,  any 
deviation  from  natural  fact  introducing  a discordant 
note  and  so  ruining  the  colour-harmony,  certainly  seems 
untenable.  Would  it  not  be  truer  to  say  that  beau- 
tiful colour  permits  fidelity  to  nature?  There  is  in 
the  human  mind — at  least  in  that  variety  of  it  which 
produces  works  of  art — a natural  shrinking  from 
bare,  hard  fact.  The  absolute  truth  of  things  as  they 
are,  with  no  softening  of  angles  or  hiding  of  ugli- 
nesses,— Mother  Isis  without  her  veil, — would  be 
intolerable  to  us.  The  schools  of  colour  restore  her  veil 
to  nature  and  wrap  her  in  the  mystery  of  atmosphere ; 
they  charm  us  with  deep,  vague  harmonies,  and  entice 


EARLY  RENAISSANCE  SCULPTURE  5 


the  imagination  into  impenetrable  shadows.  With 
them  everything  is  mysterious,  and  therefore  nothing 
is  shocking.  They  can  afford  to  give  us  the  facts  of 
nature  because  they  give  them  to  us  mitigated  as  they 
are  in  nature.  But  the  schools  of  the  line  strip  nature 
of  her  atmosphere  and  her  colour.  With  them  every- 
thing is  hard,  dry,  and  defined,  and  they  are  apt  to 
feel  that  the  least  ugliness — the  least  falling  short 
of  ideal  beauty — ^would  become  unbearable  under  the 
glare  of  their  white  light.  They  cannot  bear  the  least 
defect,  the  least  commonness,  the  least  naturalness  of 
nature,  but  refine  upon  and  polish  their  forms,  finding 
nothing  pure  or  noble  enough  for  them,  and  forever 
missing  the  rough  grandeur  and  homely  beauty  of 
this  every-day  world  which  is  constantly  to  their  hand. 

If  it  is,  then,  so  difficult  to  avoid  the  matter-of-fact 
in  painting,  which  deals  only  with  appearances,  how 
much  more  difficult  is  it  in  sculpture,  which  deals  with 
actual  substance.  A statue  is  much  more  definite  than 
any  picture.  It  is  not  a representation  of  form,  it  is 
form.  It  is  itself  a fact.  This  is  the  great  problem : 
how  is  the  sculptor,  with  his  stubborn  material  of  solid 
stone  or  massive  bronze,  to  avoid  the  stumbling-block 
of  too  great  reality.? 

There  have  been  three  great  schools  of  sculpture 
which  have  differed  widely  in  their  solution  of  this 
problem.  The  Greeks  may  be  compared  to  the  schools 
of  form  in  painting — what  are  known  as  the  classic 
schools.  They  sought  relief  from  the  hard  facts  of 


6 EARLY  RENAISSANCE  SCULPTURE 


nature  in  nobly  ideal  forms,  abstracted  from  all  acci- 
dent and  all  individuality.  They  could  not  give  the 
mystery  and  infinitude  of  nature,  and  they  would  not 
give  the  material  imperfections  of  things  divested  of 
nature’s  mystery.  They  therefore  formulated  an 
ideal  of  what  nature  ought  to  be,  of  what  seemed  to 
them  the  primal  type,  freed  from  the  thousand  varia- 
tions of  its  actual  carrying-out;  and,  this  ideal  once 
established,  they  adhered  to  it  rigidly.  Their  answer 
to  the  problem  is,  abstraction.  The  sculptors  of  the 
Renaissance,  before  Michelangelo,  gave  another  an- 
swer, which  we  will  discuss  at  length  later  on.  Michel- 
angelo gave  a third  answer.  Though  his  tower- 
ing genius  can  never  be  too  greatly  admired,  yet  he 
was  in  some  respects  less  technically  accomplished 
than  either  the  Greeks  or  the  earlier  Renaissance 
sculptors,  and  did  not  understand  either  the  glorious 
purity  of  the  Greek  ideal  or  the  system  of  delicate 
half-modelling  of  his  immediate  predecessors.  He 
has  an  ideal  and  a beauty  of  his  own,  but  he  lacks  both 
the  serene  perfection  of  the  Greeks  and  the  delicate 
Renaissance  suggestiveness.  Such  of  his  marbles  as 
are  finished  have  a certain  unsatisfactoriness  which  he 
seems  to  have  felt  himself.  He  felt  the  need  of  an 
escape  from  reality,  as  the  others  had  felt  it,  and 
he  found  it  in  rough-hewn,  unfinished  blocks,  which 
powerfully  excite  the  imagination.  Until  quite  re- 
cently he  has  had  no  followers  in  this,  and  has  con- 
stituted a school  by  himself.  His  answer  to  our 


EARLY  RENAISSANCE  SCULPTURE  7 


problem  (not  an  altogether  satisfactory  one)  is, 
unfinish. 

The  answer  of  the  earlier  Renaissance  sculptors  was, 
lowness  of  relief.  They  are  the  colourists  of  sculpture. 
Their  aim  was  to  give  something  which  should  answer 
to  the  atmosphere  and  mystery  of  painting,  and  so  to 
be  enabled  to  give  it  variety,  individuality,  and  natu- 
ralness also.  To  do  this  (working  more  or  less  uncon- 
sciously, as  artists  do,  and  probably  without  analysing 
their  aims  or  processes)  they  invented  and  carried  out 
a system  of  low  relief  which  is  one  of  the  loveliest 
and  most  perfect  means  of  artistic  expression  that  have 
ever  existed.  Of  course  the  Greeks  had  used  bas- 
reliefs,  and  used  them  exquisitely;  but  their  reliance, 
even  in  their  medals,  is  upon  the  same  quality  of  large 
abstraction  and  generalisation  as  in  their  statues,  not, 
as  in  the  Renaissance  work,  upon  suggestiveness  and 
vagueness  and  its  accompanying  naturalism  and 
individuality.  There  are  Italian  reliefs  which  are 
almost  inconceivable  in  the  delicacy  of  their  modelling. 
They  seem  hardly  more  than  sketched  with  slight 
touches  of  shadow  upon  the  marble.  The  relief  is  so 
infinitesimal,  the  modelling  so  subtle,  that  they  seem 
hardly  to  exist;  and  one  fears  to  obliterate  them  with 
a careless  brush  of  the  hand,  as  one  might  a charcoal 
drawing.  They  are  not  form,  but  the  merest  sug- 
gestion of  form,  faint  and  vague  and  fleeting  as  a 
beautiful  dream. 

But  these  wonderful  men  did  not  stop  here.  Having 


8 EARLY  RENAISSANCE  SCULPTURE 


perfected  their  system  of  low  relief,  they  applied  it 
to  sculpture  in  the  round.  In  their  busts,  in  their 
statues,  they  still  model,  as  it  were,  in  low  relief. 
Nothing  is  made  out,  nothing  is  realised;  the  intention 
is  indicated,  and  that  is  all.  The  hollows  are  not  as 
deep  as  in  nature,  nor  the  projections  as  high.  The 
hand  of  the  sculptor  has  paused  with  delicate  self- 
control,  just  before  the  suggested  form  was  quite 
completed,  and  has  left  the  rest  to  the  imagination. 
This  is  not  lack  of  finish,  as  with  Michelangelo.  No ; 
the  surfaces  are  caressed  into  beauty  with  an  infinity 
of  loving  care.  It  is  an  intentional  stopping  short  of 
complete  realisation;  it  is  lowness  of  relief.  This 
application  of  low  relief  to  sculpture  in  the  round 
is  the  great  discovery  of  the  Renaissance  sculptors. 
They  had  learned  how  to  give  nature  with  its  mystery 
and  its  atmosphere;  how  to  give,  not  form,  but  the 
appearance  of  form.  They  cast  a thin  veil  over  the 
hard  facts  of  nature,  which  the  imagination  delights  to 
penetrate. 

Their  reward  was  a nearness  to  natural  truth  which 
the  Greeks  could  not  dream  of.  No  art  gives  us  such 
an  invigorating  sense  of  freshness  of  inspiration  as 
this.  “The  world  is  all  before  them  where  to 
choose”;  as  they  realise  no  facts,  they  can  suggest 
all;  through  the  veil  of  their  illusive  modelling  they 
can  show  us  the  infinite  variety  and  individuality  of 
nature,  and,  Antaeus-like,  they  rise  with  renewed 
strength  from  their  constant  contact  with  mother 


EARLY  RENAISSANCE  SCULPTURE  9 


earth.  They  are  no  longer  bound  to  a definite  type 
of  ideal  beauty,  but  can  wander  at  will  among  the 
thousand  accidental  graces  and  half-awkward  beauties 
of  real  human  beings.  They  give  us,  not  a magnificent 
abstract  conception  of  Olympus,  but  an  endlessly 
delightful  portrait  of  the  world  we  live  in. 

Lowness  of  relief : Have  we  not  found  at  last  the 

true  answer  to  our  problem?  We  may  not  say  that 
this  art  is  greater  than  Greek  art,  but  is  it  not  more 
human  ? Does  it  not  appeal  more  closely  to  our  human 
nature?  Does  it  not  instruct  and  charm  us  more?  It 
has  the  charm  of  the  intimate.  How  quaint,  how  sin- 
cere, how  naif  those  old  Florentines  were ; with  what 
wide-open,  truth-seeing  eyes  they  looked  at  the 
universe,  and  with  what  manly  simplicity  and  frank- 
ness they  recorded  what  they  saw.  Every  one  of  their 
statues  is  a portrait:  one  has  but  to  look  at  it  to  be 
convinced  of  that.  So,  and  not  otherwise,  must  the 
real  original  have  looked.  Many  of  their  best  works 
are  professed  portraits,  and  their  living  quality  is 
extraordinary.  Look  at  any  of  the  portrait-busts  by 
these  men.  Can  fidelity,  truth,  vitality,  be  carried 
further?  Are  not  these  very  people  alive  before  you? 
Do  you  not  feel  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  them — 
a profound  conviction  that  you  must  have  met  them 
yesterday?  Do  you  not  love  the  women,  and  like 
or  hate  or  admire  the  men? 

There  is  no  more  wonderful  work  in  this  kind  than 
that  masterpiece  of  an  unknown  hand  which  is  called 


10  EARLY  RENAISSANCE  SCULPTURE 


the  Femme  Inconnue  of  the  Louvre.  Here  are  the 
lowness  and  vagueness  of  relief,  the  floating,  undefined 
modelling,  the  delicate  finish  of  surfaces,  the  exquisite 
modulation  and  subtle  curvature  of  line,  the  frank 
simplicity  of  aim,  the  individuality  and  vitality  of 
the  whole,  all  in  their  utmost  perfection.  What  a 
work  of  art  and  what  a pearl  of  women ! There  she 
is  as  she  lived  in  Florence  four  centuries  ago,  with  her 
daintily  poised  head  in  its  demure  cap,  her  slender 
neck  and  half-developed  breast,  her  bewitching  eyes, 
and  her  indefinable,  evanescent  smile. 

She  lived  in  Florence  centuries  ago, 

That  lady  smiling  there. 

What  was  her  name  or  rank  I do  not  know — 

I know  that  she  was  fair. 

For  some  great  man — his  name,  like  hers,  forgot 
And  faded  from  men’s  sight — 

Loved  her — ^he  must  have  loved  her — and  has  wrought 
This  bust  for  our  delight. 

Whether  he  gained  her  love  or  had  her  scorn 
Full  happy  was  his  fate. 

He  saw  her,  heard  her  speak;  he  was  not  born 
Four  hundred  years  too  late. 

The  palace  throngs  in  every  room  but  this — 

Here  I am  left  alone. 

Love,  there  is  none  to  see — I press  a kiss 
Upon  thy  lips  of  stone. 


PERUGINO. 


There  is  a kind  of  mystery  about  PeruginOj 
in  the  seeming  contradiction  that  his  art  has 
always  been  accepted  as  pietistic  and  religious, 
while  the  man  has  been  set  before  us  by  Vasari  as  irre- 
ligious and  avaricious,  or,  as  Berenson  puts  it,  an 
atheist  and  a villain.”  People  find  that  pictures  of 
his  evoke  the  religious  emotion  in  them,  and  they  can- 
not believe  that  this  is  possible  unless  the  man  himself 
experienced  religious  emotion.  How,  then,  explain  the 
character  drawn  for  us  by  Vasari  The  general 
method  is  that  adopted  by  Mr.  Williamson,  in  his 
book  on  Perugino  in  the  series  of  Great  Masters  in 
Painting  and  Sculpture,  and  is  like  that  other  well- 
known  solution  of  an  insoluble  problem — “The  boy 
lied.”  It  is  so  much  the  fashion  nowadays  to  con- 
tradict Vasari  that  critics  find  it  very  easy  to  assume 
that  he  was  wrong,  though  the  proof  they  bring 
against  him  is  often  of  the  slightest.  Let  us  see  how  it 
is  done  is  this  instance.  The  charge  of  avarice  is  sim- 
ply ignored.  The  defence  against  the  charge  of  irre- 
ligion  is  in  two  parts.  The  first  part  is,  as  far  as  it 
goes,  a fair  argument.  After  Perugino’s  death  his 
sons  “entered  into  a contract  with  the  monks  of  San 
Augustino,  who  were  still  in  their  father’s  debt  50 

11 


12 


PERUGINO 


scudi,  that  they  should  remove  his  body  from  Fon- 
tignano  and  bury  him  in  their  church,  and  the  sons 
agreed  to  pay  for  the  Mass.  Mariotti  says  that  there 
was  in  his  time  no  proof  that  that  ever  was  done; 
but,”  says  Mr.  Williamson,  “ the  very  fact  of  the 
contract  proves  that  nothing  could  be  said  to  the  dis- 
credit of  Perugino’s  life  or  character,  and  refutes 
idle  rumour  as  to  his  athiesm.”  Two  pages  later  we 
have  again:  ‘‘His  employment  by  the  Church,  not 
only  by  the  Chief  Pontiff,  but  by  numerous  digni- 
taries and  by  many  religious  orders,  and  the  arrange- 
ment just  mentioned  and  entered  into  by  his  sons  as 
to  his  burial,  sufficiently  refute  Vasari’s  statements.” 
The  second  part  of  the  defence  is  that  “it  is  in- 
conceivable that  such  pictures  as  the  Pazzi  ‘Cruci- 
fixion,’ the  San  Severo  ‘ Deposition,’  the  Vallombrosan 
‘Assumption,’  to  name  but  three  typical  ones,  could 
be  painted  by  an  irreligious  man  ” ; and  this  part  is 
nothing  else  than  a begging  of  the  whole  question  at 
issue.  This  is  the  whole  defence  as  given  by  Mr. 
Williamson,  and  apparently  all  the  defence  that  has 
ever  been  made. 

Now,  if  the  fact  that  Perugino  was  employed  by 
the  Church  is  to  prove  his  religion,  it  is  evident  that 
the  character  of  every  artist  of  the  Renaissance  is 
safe.  They  were  all  employed  by  the  Church,  which 
was  for  long  the  only  employer,  and  yet  it  has  been 
thought  that  some  of  them  were  bad  men,  and  some 
of  them  were  certainly  more  Pagan  than  Christian. 


PERUGINO 


Id 

As  to  the  bargain  for  Perugino’s  interment,  it  is  to 
be  noticed  that  there  is  no  proof  that  it  was  ever 
carried  out,  and  that  it  is  at  least  conceivable  that 
Perugino’s  bad  name  may  have  prevented  its  fulfil- 
ment. But  even  if  it  were  carried  out,  does  it  prove 
anything?  Did  the  Catholic  Church  ever  refuse 
burial  to  the  body  of  any  one  on  the  ground  of  reputed 
irreligion,  unless  there  had  been  condemnation  for 
heresy  or  open  contumacy?  Was  it  not  rather  the 
policy  of  the  Church  to  claim  as  its  own  every  one 
who  could  be  persuaded  to  conform  to  its  ceremonies, 
and  has  any  one  stated  that  there  was  any  lack  of 
outward  conformity  on  Perugino’s  part?  Vasari  may 
have  been  repeating  “ idle  rumours  ” without  serious 
foundation.  On  the  other  hand,  he  might  almost  have 
had  personal  knowledge  of  Perugino,  and  may  very 
well  have  known  men  who  knew  him  intimately. 
Certainly  the  mere  facts  of  Church  employment  and 
honourable  burial  can  by  no  stretch  of  logic  be  held 
to  “refute”  his  precise  statements.  The  defence 
breaks  down,  and  the  only  argument  left  is  that  of 
“inconceivability.”  Is  it  really  inconceivable  that 
the  painter  of  Perugino’s  pictures  should  have  been 
the  man  Vasari  drew? 

It  is  well  to  begin  with  an  exact  statement  of  what 
Vasari  really  said,  and  of  the  kind  of  man  he  really 
makes  Perugino  out  to  have  been,  for  the  vague  terms 
of  atheism  and  avarice  are  misleading.  He  represents 
Perugino,  then,  as  of  a resolute,  pushing,  and  practical 


14 


PERUGINO 


nature,  a man  who,  through  early  poverty  and 
struggle,  had  come  to  put  a high  value  upon  material 
success,  and  had  determined  to  gain  wealth;  and  he 
represents  this  incentive  as  a good  thing,  and  “ an 
assistant  in  the  cultivation  of  the  faculties  and  for  the 
attainment  of  excellence.”  Perugino,  he  says,  was 
furiously  industrious,  ‘‘turning  night  into  day,  and 
labouring  without  intermission,”  and  “ he  placed  all  his 
hopes  in  the  goods  of  fortune,  and  would  have  under- 
taken anything  for  money”;  but  he  was  also  rigidly 
and  even  scrupulously  honest  and  touchy  on  the  point 
of  commercial  honour,  as  the  anecdote  of  the  bowl  of 
ultramarine  testifies.  Finally,  he  “ possessed  but  very 
little  religion,  and  could  never  be  made  to  believe  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  nay,  most  obstinately  did 
he  reject  all  good  counsel,  with  words  suited  to  the 
stubbornness  of  his  marble-hard  brain.”  There  is 
nothing  here  about  atheism  or  avarice  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  words ; only  a material  and  practical  nature 
and  a hard-headed  scepticism.  The  character  answers 
very  well  to  the  features  that  look  at  us  from  the  wall 
of  the  Cambio,  and  it  corresponds  well  enough,  it  seems 
to  me,  to  the  kind  of  man  that  should  have  painted  the 
pictures  we  know.  For  if  there  is  one  thing  plainer 
than  another,  it  is  that  Perugino  was  a commercial 
painter  as  truly  as  any  modern  that  ever  sold  himself  to 
a dealer.  Most  of  his  best  work  was  done  early  in  life, 
while  he  was  striving  for  a reputation.  When  he  had 
got  it,  and  had  found  a pattern  of  religious  picture 


PERUGINO 


15 


that  was  in  demand,  he  ceased  to  make  any  progress, 
supplied  the  demand  by  wholesale  as  rapidly  as  pos- 
sible, and  degenerated  while  those  around  him  were 
progressing  rapidly. 

Perugino  had  half-a-dozen  attitudes  that  occur  over 
and  over  again,  and  only  one  face,  subject  to  the 
accidents  of  age  and  sex.  Not  only  are  his  pictures 
nearly  all  on  one  plan,  but  certain  figures  occur  again 
and  again,  line  for  line,  and  detail  for  detail.  In  the 
thirty-eight  plates  of  Mr.  Williamson’s  book  St. 
Michael  appears  three  times  with  slight  variations  of 
costume,  but  no  essential  change  of  attitude.  Certain 
angels  turn  up  five  times,  and  three  times  more  with  a 
variation — the  same  variation — in  the  pose  of  the 
hands.  It  is  even  one  of  the  best  proofs  of  the 
authenticity  of  the  much-discussed  “Resurrection” 
of  the  Vatican,  that  whoever  painted  the  picture  had 
access  to  Perugino’s  cartoons  and  used  them  for  these 
angels.  There  are  four  other  angels,  playing  on 
musical  instruments,  in  the  “Ascension”  at  Borgo 
San  Sepolcro  that  occur  again  exactly  copied  in  the 
“ Assumption  ” of  the  Florence  Academy,  only  their 
relative  positions  have  been  changed  and  one  of  them 
is  reversed;  the  cartoon  having  evidently  been  turned 
wrong  side  out  and  pounced  through  from  the  back. 
St.  Sebastian  has  always  the  same  pose,  only  reversed 
on  one  occasion ; the  Christ  of  the  Academy  “ Cruci- 
fixion ” is  not  only  from  the  same  model  as  that  of  the 
Pazzi  “ Crucifixion,”  but  has  identically  the  same  folds 


16 


PERUGINO 


of  drapery,  and  so  has  the  Christ  of  the  “ Cruci- 
fixion ” in  St.  Augustine’s,  Siena ; and  there  are 
almost  countless  other  instances  of  a similar  economy. 
These  repetitions  were  notorious  in  the  artist’s  own 
day,  and  he  was  reproached  for  them;  his  answer 
being,  in  substance,  “ These  are  the  same  figures  you 
once  admired;  why  are  they  not  good  now.?^  ” But 
even  when  the  figures  are  not  literal  copies  of  each 
other,  they  are  so  mannered  as  to  show  that  the  artist 
can  have  made  little  fresh  study  from  nature  after 
his  earliest  days.  These  round  faces  with  their  silly 
little  features  and  sweet  smiles,  these  lackadaisical 
attitudes  with  head  on  one  side,  these  curling  rib- 
bons and  spindle  shanks  and  toes  turned  out  beyond 
the  bounds  of  anatomical  possibility,  are  irritating 
enough  to  some  people  to  make  them  echo  Michael- 
angelo’s  famous  boutade  at  the  “ blockhead  of  art.” 
But  if  Perugino  was  a conunercial  painter,  he  was 
an  honest  merchant,  and,  though  he  was  content  to 
give  the  monks  what  they  wanted,  with  little  trouble 
of  fresh  invention,  yet  his  craftsmanship  was  always 
sound,  his  technique  admirable.  And  there  was  one 
spark  of  the  true  artist  in  Perugino,  one  great  qual- 
ity which  he  possessed,  one  thing  which  he  painted 
with  heart.  This  thing  was  landscape,  of  which  he  is 
one  of  the  great  masters ; and  this  quality  is  a truly 
wonderful  sense  for  and  power  of  expressing  space. 
Picture  after  picture  of  his  is  saved  and  rendered 
impressive  by  its  background;  in  picture  after  pic- 


PERUGINO:  VIRGIN  AND  CHILD 


PERUGINO 


17 


ture  you  escape  past  the  feeble  and  perfunctory 
figures  into  the  large  and  tranquil  landscape  beyond, 
and  breathe  deep  with  pleasure  and  exaltation  of  feel- 
ing. Mr.  Berenson,  in  his  acute  analysis  of  “The 
Central  Italian  Painters  of  the  Renaissance,”  has 
pointed  out  this  power  of  what  he  calls  “ space  com- 
position ” as  characteristic  of  the  whole  Umbrian 
school,  and  has  maintained  that  it  is  only  by  virtue 
of  this  power,  and  the  consequent  evocation  in  the 
spectator  of  a “ sense  of  identification  with  the 
universe,”  that  “art  can  directly  communicate  re- 
ligious emotion.”  If  this  be  true,  is  there  any  longer 
any  mystery  about  Perugino’s  character.'^  In  the 
rendering  of  space  in  landscape  he  was  the  greatest 
of  all  masters,  save  only  Raphael ; the  rest  is  ecclesi- 
astical millinery.  But  until  it  is  proved  that  it  is 
requisite  for  the  representation  of  space  that  the 
artist  should  have  attained  intellectual  conviction  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  we  need  not  worry  about 
his  irreligion. 


MICHELANGELO 


The  rhapsody  with  which,  in  the  life-time  of 
of  his  hero,  Vasari  opened  his  Life  of  Michel- 
angelo was  written  by  a professed  follower 
of  the  master,  but  it  gives  a not  unfair  notion  of  the 
estimation  in  which  the  great  man  was  held  by  his 
contemporaries  and  his  immediate  successors.  To 
them  he  was  the  one  supreme  and  “ divine  ” artist. 
They  saw  that  he  had  crowned  the  edifice,  so  long 
a-building,  of  Florentine  art,  that  he  had  finally  and 
completely  done  what  others  had  been  trying  to  do 
for  more  than  three  hundred  years.  They  saw,  also, 
that  his  genius  had  transformed  the  arts  of  painting, 
of  sculpture,  and  of  architecture  into  something  dif- 
ferent from  what  they  had  before  been,  into  something 
reflecting  his  own  strong  personality ; and  they  looked 
upon  him  as  the  great  teacher,  as  one  who  had  shown 
the  way  to  a grander  if  less  graceful  art  than  any 
they  had  known.  They  could  not  see  that  the  very 
completeness  of  his  achievement  was  the  death-knell 
of  his  school,  and  that  he  had  at  once  exhausted  the 
old  mine  from  which  so  much  precious  ore  had  been 
extracted  and  the  new  vein  which  he  himself  had 
opened. 


18 


MICHELANGELO 


19 


The  Florentine  School,  which  culminated  in  Michel- 
angelo, was  pre-eminently  the  school  of  draughtsman- 
ship and  of  the  human  figure.  The  Florentines  were 
rarely  colourists,  cared  little  for  landscape,  and  were 
not  always  masters  of  composition,  but  they  were  all 
draughtsmen ; and  from  the  time  that  Giotto  first  put 
fresh  life  into  the  embalmed  body  of  Byzantine  tradi- 
tion each  master  had  added  something  to  the  stock  of 
knowledge  and  had  come  a little  nearer  to  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  Florentine  ideal  of  significant  drawing — 
of  that  treatment  of  form  which  renders  its  solidity, 
its  structure,  and  its  movement  more  instantaneously 
perceptible  than  they  are  in  nature  itself.  The 
greatest  of  them  all,  Masaccio,  had  done  work  which 
has  in  some  respects  never  been  surpassed,  and  which 
his  successors  never  ceased  humbly  to  study  while  art 
was  alive  in  Florence.  When  Michelangelo  Buon- 
arotti  Simoni  was  born,  on  Monday,  March  6,  1475, 
Verrocchio,  Botticelli,  and  Michelangelo’s  future 
master,  Ghirlandajo,  were  at  their  best,  and  another, 
Florentine  by  education,  though  not  by  birth,  and 
more  Florentine  than  the  Florentines  in  his  style,  Luca 
Signorelli.  A greater  than  any  of  these,  the 
first  in  date  of  the  artists  of  the  culmination,  Leo- 
nardo da  Vinci,  was  twenty-three  years  old  at  Michel- 
angelo’s birth,  while  the  third  of  the  great  triumvirate 
of  the  high  Renaissance,  Raphael,  was  born  eight 
years  later,  in  1483.  Between  Michelangelo’s  birth 
and  Raphael’s  came  in  one  year,  1477,  those  of 


m 


MICHELANGELO 


Giorgione  and  of  Titian,*  the  two  artists  who  were 
to  show  a new  road  to  art  when  the  Florentine  and 
the  Umbrian  had  set  their  ne  plus  ultra  upon  the  old. 

Michelangelo’s  family  were  gentlefolk,  who  fan- 
cied themselves  of  high  origin,  and  who  vainly  op- 
posed his  vocation  to  art.  In  1488,  at  the  age  of  thir- 
teen, he  was  formally  apprenticed  to  Ghirlandajo, 
then  engaged  upon  the  frescoes  of  Santa  Maria 
Novella.  During  the  year  that  the  apprentice- 
ship lasted  Michelangelo  must  have  gained  all  the 
knowledge  of  the  practice  of  fresco-painting  that  he 
ever  had  until  he  began  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine. 
At  the  end  of  that  time  he  decided  to  become  a sculp- 
tor, and  went  for  study  to  the  Medici  Gardens,  where 
he  began  to  hew  out  marbles  intended  for  the  Library 
of  San  Lorenzo,  acquiring  that  mastery  of  the  chisel 
which  he  always  retained.  There  also  he  carved  a 
mask  of  a faun,  supposed  to  be  his  earliest  extant 
work,  which,  if  it  is  indeed  that  preserved  in  the  Bar- 
gello,  is  no  great  thing.  Lorenzo,  we  are  told,  treated 
the  young  sculptor  with  great  consideration,  made 
him  an  allowance,  and  took  him  into  his  own  house, 
where  he  lived  on  intimate  terms  with  the  first  scholars 
and  the  best  poets  of  the  age.  He  studied  from  the 
frescoes  of  Masaccio  in  the  Carmini  and  from  the 
antique,  and  he  did  one  original  relief,  known  as  ‘‘  The 

• This  has  been  the  generally  accepted  belief.  Titian’s  birth 
is  now  placed,  by  some  authorities,  several  years  later,  about 
1490. 


MICHELANGELO 


21 


Centaurs,”  which  is  preserved  in  the  Casa  Buonarotti. 
It  is  a wonderful  work  for  that  of  a mere  boy,  and  is 
essentially  more  Michelangelesque  in  style  than  any- 
thing he  did  for  some  years  afterwards.  In  the  Casa 
Buonarotti  is  another  work  of  these  years,  a bas-relief 
of  the  Madonna  “ in  the  style  of  Donatello.” 

Besides  the  influence  of  the  poets  and  scholars  of 
Lorenzo’s  brilliant  court  we  must  reckon  with  another 
influence  that  was  brought  to  bear  on  Michelangelo 
at  this  period  of  his  life,  that  of  Savonarola.  That 
it  was  profound  and  lasting  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
Dante,  the  Bible,  and  the  writings  of  Savonarola  are 
said  to  have  been  his  favourite  reading  and  the  sub- 
jects of  his  meditations  in  his  old  age.  The  Pagan- 
ism and  the  Judaism  which  remain  such  prominent 
and  conflicting  elements  in  his  art  were  thus  de- 
veloped in  his  nature  during  these  early  years. 

Shortly  after  Lorenzo’s  death  in  1492,  Michel- 
angelo returned  to  his  father’s  house,  where  he  carved 
a Hercules  and  a Crucifix,*  both  now  lost.  Then  the 
first  of  those  panics  to  which  he  was  occasionally  sub- 
ject befell  him,  and  he  left  Florence  for  the  first  time 
shortly  before  the  fall  of  the  Medici. 

He  did  not  remain  long  abroad,  but  was  for  a while 
at  Bologna,  where  he  carved  one  of  the  angels  on  the 
tomb  of  San  Domenico.  On  his  return  to  Florence  he 

*Prof.  Henry  Thode,  of  Heidelberg,  believes  he  has  recog- 
nised this  early  work  of  Michelangelo’s  in  a crucifix  still  over 
the  high  altar  of  San  Spirito,  for  which  church  it  was  executed. 


MICHELANGELO 


did  a statue  of  John  Baptist,  which  is  possibly  that 
now  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  and  a sleeping  Cupid,  of 
which  nothing  certain  is  known,  but  which  was,  as 
the  story  goes,  broken  and  stained  and  sold  for  an 
antique.  This  statue  was  the  cause  of  his  first 
going  to  Rome,  where  he  was  invited  in  1496  by  its 
purchaser,  the  Cardinal  San  Giorgio.  During  this 
visit  to  Rome  he  produced  the  “ Bacchus,”  the 
“Pieta,”  (the  only  work  he  ever  signed),  and  proba- 
bly the  unfinished  “ Cupid  ” in  the  South  Kensington 
Museum.  His  reputation  was  now  great  and  grow- 
ing, and  when  he  returned  to  Florence  in  1501  he  was 
overwhelmed  with  commissions,  many  of  which  were 
never  executed.  He  was  to  have  done  twelve  apostles, 
of  which  only  one  was  even  roughed  out.  He  did  do 
the  “ Bruges  Madonna,”  two  reliefs  of  Madonnas, 
never  finished,  and,  finally,  the  great  “ David.”  He 
probably  did  another  David  in  bronze,  which  has  dis- 
appeared, and  he  found  time  also  to  paint  the  ‘‘  Doni 
Madonna”  which  is  in  the  Tribuna  of  the  Uffizi. 
These  works  may  be  said  to  complete  the  list  of  those 
in  his  early  manner.  His  next  two  works,  the  famous 
cartoon  for  the  decoration  of  the  Great  Council  Room 
in  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  and  the  bronze  statue  of  Pope 
Julius,  are  lost  to  us  and  we  can  form  but  an  imper- 
fect conception  of  them.  The  works  which  follow 
them  are  in  a new  and  grander  style. 

In  1505  the  new  Pope,  Julius  II.,  called  Michel- 
angelo to  Rome  and  proposed  that  he  should  erect  a 


MICHELANGELO 


huge  mausoleum  for  the  pontiff’s  own  tomb.  The 
‘‘  tragedy  ” of  this  tomb  is  too  complicated  to  follow 
in  detail.  The  work  was  interrupted,  first  for  the 
colossal  bronze  statue  of  the  Pope  in  Bologna,  which 
was  afterwards  melted  into  cannon,  and  then  for  the 
painting  of  the  Sistine.  Contract  after  contract 
was  made,  only  to  be  broken,  and  the  tomb  (a  mere 
fragment  of  the  original  design)  was  not  finally 
erected  until  1545.  The  ‘‘  Slaves  ” of  the  Louvre  and 
several  other  figures,  more  or  less  unfinished,  were 
originally  intended  for  parts  of  this  colossal  design. 

When  the  commission  for  the  decoration  of  the 
ceiling  of  the  Sistine  was  given  him,  in  1508,  Michel- 
angelo was  the  first  of  living  sculptors.  On  the 
other  hand  he  had  done  nothing  in  fresco  and  very 
little  in  painting  of  any  sort.  He  was  ardently 
interested  in  his  gigantic  scheme  for  the  Julian  tomb, 
and  it  is  little  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  objected  to 
accepting  this  new  task,  and  protested  that  painting 
was  not  his  trade.  When  the  first  and  better  half  of 
the  work  was  shown  to  the  public  in  1509  he  became 
at  one  bound  the  first  painter  of  the  day  as  well  as 
the  first  sculptor,  for  Raphael,  later  his  only  rival, 
was  then  just  beginning  his  work  in  Rome.  There 
is  indeed  reason  to  believe  that  the  view  of  this 
new  masterpiece  of  decorative  painting  was  largely 
instrumental  in  the  formation  of  Raphael’s  new  and 
broad  Roman  manner.  Raphael,  the  most  impres- 
sionable and  least  personal  of  great  artists,  could  no 


24i 


MICHELANGELO 


more  resist  this  new  revelation  of  the  grand  style  in 
art  than  could  the  rest  of  the  world.  His  work  in 
the  Stanza  della  Segnatura  was  begun  about  this  time 
and  finished  in  1511,  while  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine 
was  finally  completed  in  1512.  These  two  young 
men,  of  whom  the  elder  was  but  thirty-seven  and  the 
younger  but  twenty-nine,  had  between  them  finally 
completed  and  ended  the  Renaissance  as  far  as  the 
school  of  form  was  concerned.  Not  they  themselves, 
nor  any  other,  could  do  so  well  again,  and  the  only 
possible  progress  for  painting,  thenceforward,  was 
in  subordinating  the  search  for  the  line  and  in  follow- 
ing the  Venetians  into  the  study  of  light  and  colour. 

It  was  many  years  before  Michelangelo  again 
painted  anything  which  has  survived,  and  his  great 
central  manner  is  represented  in  painting  by  this 
one  example  only.  In  sculpture  it  endured  much 
longer.  The  fragments  designed  for  the  tomb  of 
J ulius  are  in  this  style,  as  is  the  ‘‘  Christ  ” of  the 
Minerva,  and  the  Medici  monuments  in  the  Sacristy 
of  San  Lorenzo  (1525-34)  are  his  greatest  achieve- 
ments in  marble. 

The  “ Leda,”  painted  about  1529,  has  disappeared, 
and  with  this  one  exception  he  painted  nothing  dur- 
ing twenty-three  years,  many  of  which  were  occupied 
with  architecture  and  engineering  to  the  exclusion 
even  of  sculpture.  When  in  1535  Pope  Paul  III. 
appointed  him  chief  architect,  painter,  and  sculptor 
of  the  Vatican,  and  set  him  to  painting  the  “Last 


MICHELANGELO 


25 


Judgment,”  he  was  sixty  years  of  age.  The  vast 
picture  and  the  frescoes  of  the  Pauline  Chapel, 
painted  between  1542  and  1549,  are  in  his  late  man- 
ner, and  very  different  from  the  works  of  his  prime. 

The  last  years  of  Michelangelo’s  life  were  taken  up 
almost  entirely  with  architecture.  He  was  created 
architect  of  St.  Peter’s  in  1547,  and  that  and  other 
buildings  absorbed  him  more  and  more.  A model  for 
the  great  dome,  his  last  masterpiece,  was  made  in 
1557,  and  the  dome  itself  was  completed,  strictly  on 
his  plans,  after  his  death.  Everything  else  in  the 
building  was  altered  by  his  successors.  He  died  in 
1564  in  the  eighty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  the  most 
famous  artist  in  the  world;  Titian  alone,  of  the  great 
men  of  his  younger  days,  surviving  him.  His  funeral 
was  solemnised  in  the  church  of  the  Santi  Apostoli  at 
Rome  with  great  pomp,  but  his  nephew  secretly  con- 
veyed his  body  to  Florence,  where  it  was  buried  in 
Santa  Croce,  and  Vasari  devotes  many  pages  to  the 
ceremonies  held  in  his  honour  by  the  Academy  of 
Florence.  Monuments  were  erected  to  his  memory 
in  both  churches. 

In  considering  the  personal  character  of  Michel- 
angelo it  seems  to  me  that  sufficient  importance  has 
hardly  been  given  to  one  fact.  Condi vi’s  statement, 
as  translated  by  Symonds,  is  precise:  ‘‘His  pro- 

longed habits  of  dissection”  he  says  “injured  his 
stomach  to  such  an  extent  that  he  lost  the  power  of 


£6 


MICHELANGELO 


eating  and  drinking  to  any  profit.”  If  we  consider 
Michelangelo  as  a confirmed  dyspeptic  from  his  youth 
up  (for  the  greater  part  of  his  anatomical  study  must 
have  been  done  in  the  early  days  at  Florence),  we 
shall  perhaps  have  a key  to  much  in  his  character. 
His  moodiness,  irascibility,  and  suspiciousness,  as 
well  as  his  constitutional  melancholy  and  depression 
— characteristics  strongly  enough  marked  to  lead 
Lombroso  and  others  to  consider  him  insane — may 
well  have  flowed  from  a disordered  digestion.  How 
marked  these  characteristics  were,  a hundred  anec- 
dotes show.  His  rages  with  his  servants  and  his 
quarrels  with  his  powerful  patrons  are  well  known. 
In  such  moments  nothing  restrained  him,  yet  he  was 
constitutionally  timid.  Here  again  we  have  the  ex- 
press testimony  of  his  friend  and  pupil,  Condivi,  as 
well  as  that  of  his  actions,  notably  his  flight  from 
Florence  before  the  surrender  of  the  city  to  Clement. 
He  was,  says  Condivi,  as  is  usual  with  men  of  seden- 
tary and  contemplative  habits,  rather  timorous  than 
otherwise,  except  when  he  is  roused  by  righteous 
anger  to  resent  unjust  injuries  or  wrongs  done  to 
himself  or  others,  in  which  case  he  plucks  up  more 
spirit  than  those  who  are  esteemed  brave.”  His  sus- 
piciousness is  best  shown,  perhaps,  in  the  flaming 
letter  of  rebuke  he  wrote  to  his  nephew  Lionardo,  who 
had  hastened  to  Rome  to  see  him  in  one  of  his  illnesses, 
in  which  he  accuses  the  young  man  of  looking  for 
his  inheritance.  In  his  habits  he  was  abstemious 


MICHELANGELO 


and  almost  miserly.  Condivi  says : “ He  has  always 
been  extremely  temperate  in  living,  using  food  more 
because  it  was  necessary  than  for  any  pleasure  he 
took  in  it,  especially  when  he  was  engaged  upon  some 
great  work;  for  then  he  usually  confined  himself  to 
a piece  of  bread,  which  he  ate  in  the  middle  of  his 
labour.  . . . And  this  abstemiousness  in  food  he 

has  practised  in  sleep  also ; for  sleep,  according  to  his 
own  account,  rarely  suits  his  constitution,  since  he 
continually  suffers  from  pains  in  the  head  during 
slumber,  and  any  excessive  amount  of  sleep  deranges 
his  stomach.  While  he  was  in  full  vigour,  he  gener- 
ally went  to  bed  with  his  clothes  on,  even  to  the  tall 
boots,  which  he  has  always  worn  because  of  a chronic 
tendency  to  cramp,  as  well  as  for  other  reasons.  At 
certain  seasons  he  has  kept  these  boots  on  for  such  a 
length  of  time  that  when  he  drew  them  off  the  skin 
came  away  together  with  the  leather,  like  that  of  a 
sloughing  snake.”  At  one  time  he  and  his  two  assist- 
ants slept  three  in  a bed.  Yet  he  was  most  liberal  to 
his  family  and  friends,  providing  generously  for  the 
first,  and  giving  the  latter  many  priceless  drawings 
and  even  statues  which  he  could  not  be  induced  to 
sell.  He  was  proud,  and  had  a bitter  tongue,  and 
some  of  his  caustic  remarks  are  celebrated.  He  has 
been  thought  to  have  been  envious  in  his  disposition, 
but  it  may  be  said  in  his  defence  that  a real  artistic 
antipathy  underlay  most  of  his  criticisms.  The  art 
of  Raphael  he  was  ill  fitted  to  understand,  and  in  the 


28 


MICHELANGELO 


case  of  the  others  whom  he  most  savagely  attacked 
I own  to  a strong  sympathy  with  his  point  of  view. 
Perugino  and  Francia  are  the  chief  of  these,  and  to 
me  it  has  always  seemed  that  the  tradesmanlike  per- 
fection and  sweet  insipidity  of  their  work  was  a fair 
excuse  for  Michelangelo’s  dislike.  On  the  other  hand 
it  should  be  remembered  that  he  could  praise  as 
grandly  as  he  could  damn.  His  calling  Ghiberti’s 
gates  “worthy  to  be  the  gates  of  Paradise”  is  a 
classic,  but  of  Bramante,  his  personal  enemy,  he 
could  speak  as  warmly,  saying,  “ Bramante’s  talent 
as  an  architect  was  equal  to  that  of  any  one  from  the 
times  of  the  ancients  until  now.” 

He  could  not  get  on  well  with  pupils  or  work  with 
assistants,  and  though  his  influence  was  enormous  he 
formed  no  true  school.  When  he  began  the  ceiling  of 
the  Sistine  he  engaged  several  fresco  painters  from 
Florence,  but  soon  drove  them  away.  He  cannot 
have  carried  on  the  whole  work  single-handed,  as  the 
legend  tells  us,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  must 
have  had  men  under  his  direction,  but  mere  workmen 
were  all  he  could  put  up  with.  He  worked  by  prefer- 
ence entirely  alone,  and  often  at  night  by  the  light 
of  a candle  fitted  to  a pasteboard  visor  on  his  head. 
He  was  at  the  antipodes  of  the  serene  craftsmen  who 
knew  their  trade  and  could  teach  it.  To  him  the  in- 
communicable personal  element  was  the  essence  of  a 
work  of  art,  and  it  were  better  that  a work  should  go 
unfinished  than  that  it  should  be  finished  in  collabora- 


MICHELANGELO 


29 


tion  with  another.  That  he  was  profoundly  melan- 
choly his  whole  work,  and  particularly  his  sonnets, 
shows  plainly.  He  was  also  profoundly  religious.  In 
his  later  years  he  made  many  drawings  of  the  cruci- 
fixion and  other  subjects  from  the  Passion  of  Christ, 
and  he  refused  to  receive  any  pay  for  his  work  on 
St.  Peter’s,  giving  his  services  for  the  good  of  his 
soul.  He  never  married  and,  as  far  as  we  know, 
never  loved,  his  friendship  for  Vittoria  Colonna  being 
the  purely  platonic  love  of  an  elderly  man  for  an  eld- 
erly woman.  He  was  capable  of  much  more  enthusi- 
astic and  almost  passionate  affection  for  noble  and 
beautiful  young  men. 

In  all  these  traits  we  see  clearly,  I think,  the  artist 
of  the  modern,  personal,  and  emotional  type ; the  man 
of  nervous  temperament,  belonging  to  the  germs 
irritabile,  the  artist  who  plays  upon  his  soul  and  draws 
from  it  wondrous  music;  the  man  of  the  type  of 
Rembrandt  and  of  Beethoven.  In  a word,  Michel- 
angelo was  a great  Romantic  genius. 

I know  of  no  more  instructive  comparison  than  that 
between  this  gloomy  genius  and  his  great  rival  and 
contemporary,  Raphael.  Raphael,  who  was  every- 
thing that  Michelangelo  was  not;  Raphael,  with  his 
sunny  nature,  his  troops  of  friends  and  his  army  of 
pupils;  Raphael,  with  his  marvellous  achievement  of 
pure  beauty  and  his  almost  entire  absence  of  per- 
sonality ; he  who  learned  everything  from  others  and 
yet  did  everything  with  a grace  no  other  could  com- 


30 


MICHELANGELO 


pass,  and  who  taught  others  so  well  that  their  work 
is  scarce  to  be  distinguished  from  his  own ; whose  pic- 
tures have  no  meanings  but  the  obvious  one,  and  no 
emotions  but  joy,  and  who  was  so  careless  of  the 
personal  touch  that  he  could  complacently  see  his 
design  botched  and  mangled  by  his  prentices  so  long 
as  a palace  wall  was  decorated:  Raphael  is  the  most 
perfect  contrast  conceivable  to  the  solitary,  melan- 
choly Michelangelo,  and  as  perfect  a type  of  the 
classic  temperament  in  art  as  the  other  is  of  the 
romantic.  No  wonder  they  could  not  understand  or 
like  each  other.  I know  of  but  one  parallel  to  this 
contrast  of  two  great  contemporaries,  and  it  holds  at 
all  points,  that  between  Rubens  and  Rembrandt. 

With  this  knowledge  of  Michelangelo’s  personal- 
ity let  us  take  up  the  study  of  his  art.  We  have 
already  noticed  that  his  production,  exclusive  of  his 
architecture,  of  which  I shall  have  little  to  say,  falls 
into  three  periods  marked  by  three  distinct  manners. 
The  first  of  these  periods,  which  extends,  roughly 
speaking,  from  his  fourteenth  to  his  thirty-fourth 
year,  may  be  called  the  realistic  period;  the  second, 
extending  from  his  thirty-fourth  year  to  his  sixtieth, 
may  be  called  the  period  of  style;  while  it  would  not 
be  unjust  to  call  the  last  period  that  of  mannerism. 
It  is  notable  that  almost  all  the  work  of  the  first  of 
these  periods  that  has  come  down  to  us  is  in  sculpture. 
There  are  but  two  pictures  that  are  attributed  to  this 


MICHELANGELO 


31 


period  of  his  life  by  good  judges,  and  one  of  these 
is  not  certainly  his.  The  “Doni  Madonna”  is  un- 
doubtedly by  him,  but  it  was  painted  well  on  toward 
the  end  of  the  period.  The  twenty  years  of  his  life 
in  which  he  was  learning  his  profession  and  mastering 
his  tools  were  devoted  almost  exclusively  to  sculpture, 
and  this  fact  set  its  mark  deeply  upon  all  his  future 
production.  Whether  he  were  most  painter  or  sculp- 
tor by  nature,  his  training  had  made  him  a sculptor, 
and  a sculptor  he  remained  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

He  began,  as  most  artists  do,  by  an  imitation  of 
what  had  gone  before  him.  His  first  independent 
work,  “The  Centaurs,”  was  indeed,  as  I have  said, 
Michelangelesque  in  conception,  and  seems  like  a 
foretaste  of  his  later  work,  and  this  resemblance  is 
increased  by  the  fact  that  the  relief  was  never  fin- 
ished; but  the  relief  of  a Madonna,  executed  about 
the  same  time,  was  avowedly  an  imitation  of  Dona- 
tello. If  the  “John  Baptist”  in  the  Berlin  Gallery 
be  really  by  him,  it  is  also  an  imitation  of  Donatello, 
with  some  faint  marks  of  his  own  later  manner,  while 
the  “ Sleeping  Cupid  ” must  have  been  an  intentional 
imitation  of  the  antique.  It  was  only  after  his  first 
arrival  in  Rome  that  he  began  to  do  work  of  real 
importance,  and  the  first  statue  he  did  there,  the 
“ Bacchus,”  is  still  not  very  original,  and  certainly 
not  very  good.  The  conception  is  his  own,  but  the 
execution  is  rather  in  the  vein  of  Graeco-Roman 
sculpture  of  an  inferior  kind.  Everything  is  round 


S2 


MICHELANGELO 


and  puffily  modelled,  without  accent  and  without 
charm.  It  had  in  its  day  and  still  has  a great 
renown,  yet  if  he  had  done  nothing  else  his  fame 
would  scarcely  have  endured.  It  is  in  the  “ Pieta,” 
the  “Madonna  of  Bruges,”  and  the  “David”  that 
we  shall  find  the  real  Michelangelo  of  the  first  period, 
and  as  the  “Madonna  of  Bruges  ” is  neither  so  well 
known  nor  so  significant  as  the  other  two,  it  is  to 
them  that  we  may  best  devote  our  attention. 

It  is  important  to  note  here  that  Michelangelo 
was  born  too  late  to  continue  the  direct  tradition  of 
Renaissance  sculpture.  The  time  of  his  birth  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  time  of  the  highest  activity  in 
painting  immediately  preceding  the  culmination  of 
the  art,  but  sculpture  was  in  the  Italian  Renaissance, 
as  it  has  usually  been  in  the  history  of  the  world,  at 
least  a century  in  advance  of  painting.  Sculpture 
had  already  reached  a point  of  perfection  with  Dona- 
tello and  Ghiberti  which  it  was  difficult  to  equal  and 
in  some  respects  impossible  to  excel,  and  Donatello 
had  died,  an^  old  man,  eight  years  before  Michel- 
angelo was  born.  The  decadence  had  already  begun, 
and  Michelangelo  may  be  said  to  have  stood  alone, 
the  one  great  sculptor  of  liis  age,  not  the  continuer 
of  a great  school.  His  master  was  a pupil  of  Dona- 
tello’s, and  may  have  imparted  to  him  some  of  the 
Donatellesque  traditions,  but  the  influence  of  Dona- 
tello, which  is  visible  in  some  of  the  details  of  his 
work,  in  the  type  of  the  heads  and  the  arrangement 


MICHELANGELO 


3S 


of  the  draperies,  is  rather  like  the  influence  of  an  old 
master  upon  a modern  than  like  that  of  a teacher 
upon  his  immediate  pupil.  Later  he  must  have  been 
greatly  influenced  by  a study  of  the  works  of  Jacopo 
della  Quercia.  The  subtle  technique  of  the  older 
school,  with  its  delicate  modelling  and  half -relief,  he 
neither  understood  nor  practised.  There  is  no  hint- 
ing at  partially  revealed  forms  in  these  early  works 
of  Michelangelo — everything  is  pushed  to  the  extreme 
of  realisation,  and  the  surface  is  searched  to  its  utmost 
cranny  and  polished  like  glass.  The  dead  Christ  of 
the  “ Pieta  ” is  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  piece  of 
purely  realistic  sculpture  in  existence,  every  vein  and 
cord  and  muscle  studied  with  the  science  of  an 
anatomist  and  the  eagerness  of  a student  determined 
to  master  fact  once  for  all.  There  is  already  more 
stylistic  convention  in  the  “ David,”  but  there  is  still 
much  realism  of  an  elevated  sort  in  the  conception. 
The  heavy  head  and  big  hands  of  a half-grown  boy 
look  odd  on  this  gigantic  scale,  but  they  are  only  a 
part  of  the  naturalism  of  the  whole.  These  figures 
are  the  work  of  a student — surely  the  most  wonderful 
student  that  ever  lived — ^but  still  a student  learning 
truth,  not  yet  a supreme  master  expressing  feeling. 
It  is  worth  noting  in  passing — I shall  have  more  to 
say  of  this  peculiarity  presently — ^that  the  heads  of 
the  two  figures  in  the  “ Pieta  ” are  entirely  insignifi- 
cant, while  that  of  the  “ David  ” is  a conventionalised 
and  somewhat  vulgarised  version  of  Donatello’s  “ St. 


34 


MICHELANGELO 


George.”  To  the  period  of  noble  naturalism  belongs 
the  ‘‘  Doni  Madonna,”  and  to  it  also  must  have 
belonged,  from  what  we  know  of  it,  the  lost  cartoon 
of  the  “ Battle  of  Pisa.”  It  is  not  merely  that  the 
praises  that  have  come  down  to  us  speak  only  of  its 
realism — that  might  be  the  fault  of  the  critics — ^but 
the  fragmentary  copies  of  it  that  remain  seem  to 
show  us  nothing  else  than  a great  piece  of  study,  or 
rather  a final  demonstration  of  mastery.  Once  and 
for  all  the  master  proclaimed  to  the  world  his  abso- 
lute science,  his  perfect  knowledge  of  anatomy,  his 
ability  to  draw  every  conceivable  attitude,  every 
possible  movement,  every  difficult  foreshortening  of 
the  human  figure.  To  test  and  to  display  his  acquire- 
ments— the  performance  had  no  other  object  than 
this.  It  was  an  achievement  easy  to  understand  and 
to  applaud,  and  it  was,  perhaps,  more  admired  and 
studied  than  anything  else  its  author  ever  did.  It 
was  the  school  of  the  young  artists  of  Florence,  and 
Vasari  and  Cellini,  neither  of  whom  could  compre- 
hend the  poet  in  their  master,  exalted  this  as  his 
greatest  work. 

This  long  and  intense  study  of  natural  fact  com- 
pleted and  perfect  mastery  finally  attained,  Michel- 
angelo had  now  to  show  what  he  meant  to  do  with  his 
knowledge.  The  time  for  self-expression  had  come, 
and  the  opportunity  came  with  it.  As  a sculptor 
the  commission  for  the  decoration  of  the  Sistine  ceil- 
ing was  not  grateful  to  him,  yet  it  is  the  only  one 


MICHELANGELO 


35 


of  his  vast  schemes  that  was  ever  carried  out  as  he 
planned  it.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  enjoyed 
invention  more  than  execution,  and  he  was  constantly 
planning  monumental  schemes  which  could  be  carried 
out,  in  sculpture,  only  by  that  collaboration  with 
others  of  which  he  was  incapable.  The  more  rapid 
art  of  painting  has  made  it  possible  for  us  to  know 
what  such  a Michelangelesque  scheme  of  decoration 
might  be  like ; and,  sculptor  as  he  was,  this  great  work 
of  painting  is  perhaps  the  highest  and  most  complete 
expression  his  genius  ever  found.  How  essentially 
he  remained  a sculptor,  however,  even  in  his  painting, 
a slight  study  is  sufficient  to  demonstrate.  There 
is  not  a composition  nor  a part  of  a composition  in 
all  this  series  that  is  not  capable  of  treatment  in  bas- 
relief,  while  the  isolated  figures  of  prophets  and  sibyls 
would  make  admirable  statues.  The  compositions  are 
all  on  one  plane  in  the  true  sculptural  style — indeed 
without  nearly  the  scope  of  perspective  and  pictorial 
effect  that  Ghiberti  allowed  himself  in  his  reliefs— 
and  landscape,  ornament,  variety  of  texture  in  stuffs 
are  entirely  absent.  The  figure,  and  nothing  but  the 
figure,  nude  or  draped,  but  treated  always  from  the 
point  of  view  of  pure  form — ^that  is  all  that  he  deigned 
to  give  us.  Something  of  the  same  temper  had  been 
shown  by  Luca  Signorelli  in  his  frescoes  at  Orvieto, 
only  a few  years  before,  but  by  no  one  else. 

But  the  sculptor  turned  painter  found  a new 
inspiration  in  his  new  work.  The  patient  labour,  the 


MICHELANGELO 


intense  study  of  detail,  the  determination  to  realise 
to  the  utmost,  were  no  longer  possible.  The  surface 
to  be  covered  is  estimated  at  10,000  square  feet  and 
the  design  is  said  to  contain  343  figures.  All  the  con- 
ditions of  the  work  rendered  the  close  study  of  nature 
impossible,  and  this  host  of  figures  could  be  done  at 
all  only  in  virtue  of  a system  and  a convention. 
They  were  necessarily  painted  from  more  or  less 
slight  sketches  and  indications,  ard  the  artist  was 
forced  to  rely  upon  his  vast  store  of  accumulated 
knowledge  and  to  find  a style  and  a type  which 
thenceforth  dominated  his  work.  Add  to  this  the 
stimulus  which  these  subjects  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment gave  to  his  deeply  poetic  and  religious  mind, 
and  we  can  begin  to  understand  the  result.  He  had 
studied  the  human  figure  until  he  knew  it  by  heart, 
as  few  men,  perhaps  no  man,  has  ever  known  it,  and 
now,  set  free  from  the  slow  toil  of  cutting  and  polish- 
ing, set  free  from  the  dominating  presence  of  the 
model,  brooding  upon  the  mighty  myth  of  the  Crea- 
tion and  the  Fall  of  Man  and  filled  with  the  spirit  of 
the  ancient  prophets,  he  set  to  work  to  invent. 

The  grandeur  and  majesty  of  these  frescoes  is  so 
supreme  that  a cold  analysis  of  them  seems  almost  an 
impertinence.  They  are  the  highest  expression  of 
sublimity  in  all  pictorial  art.  Yet  as  one  cannot 
hope  to  express  the  grandeur  of  this  grand  style  of 
Michelangelo’s,  one  may  be  pardoned  for  trying  to 
express  some  other  things  about  it. 


MICHELANGELO 


37 


Let  us  first  note,  then,  that  as  yet  this  grandeur  is 
by  no  means  incompatible  with  beauty.  The  figures 
are  systematically  enlarged  and  idealised  in  a special 
way  until  they  become  colossal,  rugged,  titanic — pri- 
maeval powers  rather  than  human  beings — but  they 
are  beautiful  colossi.  The  thorax  of  the  “Adam” 
is  enormous  and  the  arms  are  superbly  muscular,  but 
besides  the  suggestion  of  gigantic  strength  there  is 
a grace  and  suavity  of  line  that  render  him  only  less 
beautiful  than  the  “ Ilissus  ” of  the  Parthenon.  The 
female  figures  are  idealised  in  precisely  the  same  way 
as  the  male,  and  for  the  same  reason — to  fit  them  to 
carry  the  weight  of  thought  Michelangelo  placed 
upon  them. 

There  is  no  commoner  criticism  of  Michelangelo 
than  that  he  was  insensible  to  feminine  beauty — 
and  indeed  the  sweetness  of  Raphael  or  the  charm  of 
Correggio  would  be  as  out  of  place  in  these  austere 
and  solemn  visions  as  Perugino’s  smiling  landscapes 
or  Angelico’s  painted  wings  and  patterned  draperies. 
Michelangelo’s  women  are  true  mates  for  his  men 
— grandly  thewed  and  heavy-limbed — ^but  they  are 
nevertheless  intensely  feminine.  The  “Eve,”  mighty 
mother  of  the  race  though  she  be,  is  wonderfully 
lovely,  while  the  “ Libyan  Sibyl  ” — she  who,  turning 
sidewise,  lifts  an  open  book  in  her  outstretched  arms 
and  shows  her  face  in  profile  over  her  herculean 
shoulder — is  one  of  the  most  graciously,  nobly,  and 
winningly  feminine  presences  in  all  art.  We  are  not 


38 


MICHELANGELO 


of  the  race  of  these  giants;  if  we  were,  it  is  such 
giantesses  that  we  should  love — giantesses  that  are 
not  less  but  more  feminine  for  being  framed  on  the 
great  scale  of  those  huge  things  that  loved  before 
the  Flood. 

We  have  all  heard  of  Michelangelo  as  a master 
of  drawing,  and  we  have  all  heard  that  he  was  no 
colourist.  The  greatest  of  draughtsmen  he  undoubt- 
edly was,  but  let  us  not  imagine  that  mere  “good 
drawing” — ^mere  accuracy  of  shapes  and  sizes  and 
the  “placing”  of  joints  and  muscles — is  what  dis- 
tinguishes him.  His  figures  are  often  faulty  in  pro- 
portion, impossible  in  action,  and  exaggerated  in 
outline;  but  every  line  of  them  is  full  of  intelligence, 
of  knowledge,  of  meaning,  and  of  style — full  of  art 
and  of  the  incommunicable,  inexplicable  something 
which  is  the  artist’s  mind.  This  is  what  all  great 
drawing  is,  and  it  is  a very  different  thing  from  “ good 
drawing.”  Any  one  who  understands  Michelangelo’s 
work  at  all  will  know  what  he  meant  when  he  said  that 
Titian  could  not  draw,  and  yet  Titian  was  often  more 
correct  in  his  measurements  and  proportions  than 
Michelangelo  himself. 

So  also  the  statement  that  Michelangelo  was  no 
colourist  must  be  taken  with  a condition.  He  was 
not  a colourist  in  the  sense  that  Titian  was  a colourist, 
or  Rubens ; he  was  not  a colourist  as  are  those  artists 
for  whom  colour  is  the  chief  means  of  expression  and 
whose  poetry  is  in  their  palettes.  Splendour  and  rich- 


Michelangelo:  “libyan  sybil” 


MICHELANGELO 


39 


ness  and  mystery  were  not  his.  Romanticist  though 
he  was,  his  is  the  art  of  form,  and  the  cold  light  of 
the  sculptor’s  workshop  is  ever  about  him.  Yet  two 
of  the  foremost  artists  of  our  own  day,  both  of  them 
powerful  colourists,  George  Frederick  Watts  and  our 
own  John  LaFarge,  have  recently  expressed  their 
admiration  for  the  mastery  of  colour,  within  the  limits 
he  had  set  for  himself,  shown  by  Michelangelo  in 
these  frescoes,  and  have  testified  to  the  perfect  and 
appropriate  harmony  of  their  pale  tints. 

After  the  completion  of  the  Sistine  ceiling  Michel- 
angelo turned  again  to  sculpture,  and  the  Julian 
tomb  and  the  tombs  of  the  Medici  occupied  all  of  his 
middle  life  that  he  was  suffered  to  devote  to  pure  art. 
But  the  sculpture  which  he  now  produced  was  very 
different  from  that  of  his  early  period.  For  good  or 
evil  his  Michelangelesque  manner  was  formed  and  his 
type  of  the  human  figure  established.  The  exagger- 
ated bulk  of  the  chest,  the  enormously  enlarged  and 
muscular  arms,  the  large  hands  and  small  feet,  the 
comparatively  small  legs,  and,  in  particular,  the  lower 
leg  greatly  shortened  in  proportion  to  the  long  thigh 
— these  have  become  permanent  elements  of  his  work 
from  which  he  is  never  again  to  free  himself.  Just 
why  some  of  these  conventions  were  adopted  must 
always  remain  a mystery.  In  some  strange  way  they 
answered  the  needs  of  his  mind  and  served  for  the 
expression  of  his  thought.  Other  parts  of  his  system 
are  more  explicable,  but  at  any  rate  his  treatment  of 


40 


MICHELANGELO 


the  figure  had  become  a system,  and  the  epoch  of  close 
study  of  nature  (an  epoch  through  which  every  great 
individual  artist  must  pass)  was  forever  closed. 

Besides  this  fixing  of  his  scheme  of  the  human 
figure  there  are  other  great  changes  which  separate 
the  Michelangelo  of  the  “ Slaves  ” and  the  Medici 
tombs  from  the  Michelangelo  of  the  “ Pieta”  and  the 
“David.”  The  most  sculpturesque  of  painters  has 
become  the  most  picturesque  of  sculptors,  and  his 
work  in  marble  is  henceforth  dependent  for  its  effect, 
more  than  that  of  any  other  sculptor  of  high  rank, 
upon  light  and  shade  and,  in  many  of  the  most  im- 
pressive examples,  upon  incompletion.  There  are 
several  reasons  why  it  will  be  well,  in  considering 
the  sculpture  of  Michelangelo’s  great  middle  period, 
to  confine  ourselves  to  the  Medician  tombs  in  the 
Sacristy  of  San  Lorenzo.  In  the  first  place  they 
are,  by  universal  consent,  his  grandest  and  most 
impressive  work.  In  the  second  place  they  consti- 
tute the  only  series  of  statues  by  him  which  are  seen 
together,  in  the  situation  for  which  he  intended  them, 
and  with  the  lighting  which  he  himself  arranged. 
The  Julian  monument  was  finally  entirely  altered 
from  its  original  design  and  placed  in  another  church 
than  that  for  which  it  was  intended,  while  the  frag- 
ments originally  meant  for  its  decoration  are  widely 
scattered.  In  many  cases  it  is  impossible  to  tell 
whether  certain  figures  were  or  were  not  parts  of 
its  composition.  In  the  Sacristy  of  San  Lorenzo 


MICHELANGELO 


41 


Michelangelo  was  architect  as  well  as  sculptor.  The 
setting  was  made  for  the  statues,  and  while  the 
design,  as  he  originally  conceived  it,  was  never 
carried  out  in  its  entirety,  what  there  is  of  it  is  to 
be  seen  to-day  very  nearly  as  he  meant  it  to  be 
seen. 

No  person,  at  all  impressionable  by  art,  who  has 
ever  stood  in  that  chapel  is  likely  to  forget  his 
emotion.  Nothing  in  the  whole  range  of  art  is  so 
overwhelming,  so  crushing,  so  “ intolerable.”  Its 
enormous  melancholy  catches  one  by  the  throat  and 
chokes  one  with  the  poignancy  of  the  sensation.  One 
gazes  with  a hushed  intensity,  one  cannot  tear  oneself 
away,  and  yet  one  breathes  a long  sigh  of  relief  when 
one  gets  out  at  last  into  the  sunlit  air  of  Florence. 
It  is  only  long  afterward,  and  in  cold  blood,  that  one 
can  analyse  the  impression  that  one  has  received ; and 
then  one  is  surprised  to  find  how  large  a part  of  it 
is  due  to  the  artfully  arranged  lighting  and  to  the 
unfinished  state  of  the  statues.  In  this  analysis  one 
is  much  helped  by  the  study  of  casts.  Full-sized 
casts  of  these  groups  are  to  be  found  in  the  museums, 
but  they  are  seldom  lighted  as  Michelangelo  lighted 
the  originals.  There  are  also,  in  our  art-schools, 
small-sized  casts  of  them,  the  origin  of  which  is 
doubtful.  Whether  the  originals  of  them,  preserved 
in  Florence,  are  Michelangelo’s  studies  for  the  full- 
sized  figures  or  are  copies  by  another  hand  is  a ques- 
tion I shall  not  undertake  to  decide.  At  any  rate  they 


42 


MICHELANGELO 


are  completed,  and  do  not  show  the  unfinish  of  the 
marbles,  and  they  thus  become  extraordinarily  useful 
as  materials  for  the  study  of  Michelangelo’s  methods. 
From  the  study  of  these  casts,  large  and  small,  one 
soon  becomes  aware  of  the  extraordinary  importance 
of  light  and  shade  and  of  incompletion  as  elements  in 
the  total  effect  of  Michelangelo’s  greatest  work  in 
sculpture.  Placed  anyhow  or  an3rwhere,  and  no  mat- 
ter how  lighted,  the  figures  from  the  pediment  of  the 
Parthenon  still  remain  the  same  serenely,  incompar- 
ably perfect  embodiment  of  majesty  and  beauty. 
Not  so  with  the  personal,  romantic  sculpture  of  the 
master  of  the  Renaissance.  Take  the  “ Lorenzo 
de’Medici”  from  his  niche  and  place  him  in  a plain 
side  light  and,  together  with  the  brooding  shadow  of 
his  helmet  upon  his  face,  half  his  mysterious  dignity 
has  vanished  and  he  seems  almost  commonplace.  Dis- 
engage the  face  of  the  “ Day  ” from  its  stony  mask 
and  its  strange  horror  has  evaporated.  The  “ Even- 
ing” is  entirely  enveloped  in  a veil  of  unremoved 
marble,  and  seems  verily  to  breathe  the  solemn  mys- 
tery of  twilight.  Complete  him  and  he  is  a middle- 
aged  athlete  in  repose.  What  is  left  is  the  Michel- 
angelo that  his  science  and  his  training  had  made  him, 
the  academic  master  of  anatomy  who  epitomised  the 
learning  of  the  Renaissance,  the  decorator  whose  pom- 
pous forms  and  writhing  limbs  already  foreshadow 
the  epoch  of  Rococo;  but  the  personal  element,  the 
poetry  of  the  man,  is  gone. 


MICHELANGELO 


43 


Now,  that  the  lighting  was  intentional  there  can 
be  no  manner  of  doubt,  but  about  the  lack  of  finish 
there  has  always  been,  and  perhaps  always  will  be, 
much  discussion.  It  is  certain  that  Michelangelo 
was  constantly  called  away  from  one  task  to  have 
another  imposed  upon  him,  and  it  is  probable  that  he 
sometimes  deserted  a statue  because  of  veinings  in 
the  marble  or  because  his  impetuous  chisel  had  bitten 
too  deeply  into  the  stone.  But  it  does  not  seem  to 
me  possible  that  both  these  causes  together  can  ac- 
count for  the  singular  fact  that  there  is  hardly  a 
statue  by  him  in  existence,  later  in  date  than  the 
‘‘  David,”  that  is  finished  throughout  by  his  own  hand. 
The  “ Moses  ” is  nearly,  but  not  quite,  finished,  and 
v/e  know  that  it  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  figures 
intended  for  the  Julian  tomb;  the  ‘‘Christ”  of  the 
Minerva  was  botched  by  a journeyman,  and  the 
head,  hands,  and  feet  were  ruined;  the  greater  num- 
ber remain,  as  he  left  them,  more  or  less  unfinished. 
Many  of  his  early  works  were  also  left  incompleted, 
and  this  before  the  dragging  hither  and  thither  had 
begun.  There  must  have  been  other  causes  in  the 
nature  of  the  man  for  this  peculiarity,  and  one  of  them 
he  gives  us  frankly  himself.  “ He  could  never  con- 
tent himself  with  anything  that  he  did,”  says  Vasari. 
“Nay,  Michelangelo  would  often  remark  that  if  he 
were  compelled  really  to  satisfy  himself  in  the  works 
to  be  produced,  he  should  give  little  or  nothing  to 
public  view.” 


MICHELANGELO 


It  is  notable  that  the  parts  most  frequently  left 
unfinished  are  the  head  and  the  hands,  and  this  recalls 
the  remark  I have  already  made  about  the  insignifi- 
cance of  type  in  the  heads  of  much  of  his  early  work. 
Ill  his  drawings  the  head  is  often  omitted  entirely  or 
mdicated  only  by  a scrawl.  As  an  anatomist  he 
imdoubtedly  felt  that,  structurally,  the  head  is  of 
fess  importance  than  anything  else  in  the  figure,  hav- 
ing the  smallest  influence  in  determining  the  action 
M.md  movement;  and  it  was  of  least  importance  to 
Mm  artistically  also,  for  the  whole  scheme  of  his 
art  was  based  upon  the  expression  of  the  nude  fig- 
OTe.  When  he  did  take  the  pains  to  do  a head  it 
is^as  a grand  sculpturesque  abstraction  of  anatomical 
forms  based  on  the  same  principles  as  his  ideal  of  the 
If^Ddy.  He  is  almost  the  only  modern  artist  who  has 
left  nothing  resembling  a portrait.  His  finished 
statues  have  rather  expressionless  masks  than  human 
faces,  and  he  may  well  have  felt  that  it  mattered 
little,  the  attitude  once  established,  who  finished  the 
liead,  or  whether  or  not  it  was  finished  at  all. 

More  than  this,  however,  it  is  impossible  to  sup- 
pose that  Michelangelo  was  himself  insensible  to  that 
strange  charm  which  is  so  visible  to  all  of  us  in 
Ms  unfinished  work  that  it  has  recently  become  the 
fashion  to  seek  for  it  deliberately  and  to  plan  for 
il  in  the  clay.  He  was  continually  striving  to  infuse 
Mto  sculpture  meanings  and  thoughts  which  it  was 
m&t  meant  to  express  and  could  not  hold.  His 


MICHELANGELO 


deep  poetic  spirit  tried  to  express  itself  through 
the  medium  of  the  most  simple,  classical  and  forraaJ 
of  the  arts,  and  he  was  unaided  by  the  delicate 
technical  methods  of  the  earlier  sculptors  of  t!se 
Renaissance,  which  he  never  understood.  What  more 
natural  than  that  he  should  have  found  the  sentimerf; 
evaporating  as  the  work  advanced,  and  should  have^ 
half  despairingly,  left  to  the  unfinish  of  the  sketch 
the  suggestion  of  things  which  the  cold  completes 
ness  of  the  finished  marble  could  never  convey? 
He  “ could  not  content  himself,”  and  his  statocii 
remain  more  impressive  in  their  incompletion  tha«i 
the  finished  works  of  any  other  modem. 

When  the  old  man  again  took  up  painting  hm 
invention  had  stiffened  and  his  poetic  fervour  wm 
frosted,  while  the  age  of  naturalistic  study  was  loMg 
past.  The  “Last  Judgment”  as  an  exhibition  rf 
acquired  knowledge  is  stupendous,  but  in  it  mannesr 
has  become  mannerism,  and  the  grandiose  is  inflatei 
to  pomposity.  It  has  little  or  no  real  feeling, 
colour  (what  is  left  of  it  after  the  tinkering  of  tte 
“breeches  maker”)  is  harsh  and  unpleasant,  and  ite 
writhing  and  foreshortened  figures  are  swelled  irito 
monstrous  bulk  while  they  are  posed  in  attitudes 
hardly  possible  to  the  supple  frames  of  adolescents^ 
Of  the  still  later  frescoes  of  the  Pauline  chapel  it  k 
scarce  charitable  to  speak.  Every  trace  of  reasi 
greatness  is  gone  from  them  and  they  seem  mere 
rant  and  mouthing.  The  master  himself  said, 


46 


MICHELANGELO 


shall  do  regrettable  things,”  and  he  was  right. 
The  worst  of  his  intolerable  imitators  could  do 
nothing  worse  than  these  pages  of  windy  and  empty 
rhetoric. 

Of  Michelangelo  the  architect  I am  not  qualified 
to  speak.  In  painting,  in  sculpture,  and  in  archi- 
tecture Michelangelo  was  largely  responsible  for 
the  form  which  was  taken  by  the  decadence,  but  it 
would  be  pushing  a point  too  far  to  hold  him  re- 
sponsible for  the  decadence  itself.  When  a thing  is 
ripe  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  rot,  and  the 
decadence  would  have  come  at  any  rate.  It  is  the 
peculiar  good  and  ill  fortune  of  those  who  come  at 
the  supreme  moment  of  perfect  ripeness,  that  they 
leave  behind  them  an  unsurpassable  glory,  while  they 
are  held  accountable  by  some  for  the  corruption 
that  follows.  In  the  history  of  the  arts  of  form 
Michelangelo  and  Raphael,  romanticist  and  classi- 
cist, occupy  together  this  peculiar  eminence,  and  from 
them  flow  two  streams  which  pervaded  the  decadence, 
one  freezing  into  the  icy  stateliness  of  the  academic, 
the  other  boiling  up  into  the  turgid  declamation  of 
the  Baroque.  The  greater  the  personal  force  of  an 
artist  the  deadlier,  generally  speaking,  is  his  influ- 
ence, for  the  men  of  greatest  personality  are  the  men 
of  greatest  faults  and  greatest  virtues,  and  their 
faults  are  imitable  while  their  virtues  are  not.  If 
the  works  of  Michelangelo  were  all  destroyed  and  we 
could  judge  of  his  power  only  by  the  attractive  and 


MICHELANGELO 


47 


destructive  influence  which  he  exercised  upon  his  suc- 
cessors, we  should  still  be  justified  in  supposing  that 
the  force  which  had  been  so  profoundly  felt  must 
have  been  that  of  one  of  the  greatest  artists  of  any 
country  and  of  all  time. 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


The  pictures  of  the  great  Venetians  are  scat- 
tered through  all  the  galleries  of  Europe,  and 
some  of  these  painters  may  be  studied  better 
almost  anywhere  else  than  at  home.  Others  you  can 
hardly  understand  until  you  have  gone  to  Venice  to 
see  them,  and  these  notes,  made  long  ago  upon  the 
spot,  show  how  some  of  the  pictures  of  Venice  struck 
a painter  who  cared  more  for  their  essential  quality 
as  art  than  for  their  importance  in  other  ways. 

First  of  all,  then,  the  earlier  men,  the  Vivarini  and 
the  rest,  and  even  Gentile  Bellini  and  the  much-lauded 
Carpaccio,  have  little  beyond  a historical  interest. 
Carpaccio’s  St.  Ursula  series  is  an  entertaining 
picture-book,  full  of  historical  costumes  and  “docu- 
ments ” for  the  reconstruction  of  a past  Venice,  but 
it  is  quite  artless  and  childlike  in  both  composition 
and  drawing,  and  not  very  remarkable  in  colour ; and 
the  traveller  who  follows  Mr.  Ruskin’s  advice  and 
spends  much  time  in  reverential  study  of  it,  is  likely 
to  hinder  his  growth  in  any  real  appreciation  of  what 
painting  is.  The  first  seriously  considerable  artist 
of  the  school  is  Giovanni  Bellini,  and  he  holds  his  own 
well.  There  is  no  lovelier  piece  of  early  Renaissance 
work,  of  the  somewhat  hard  and  thinly  painted  kind, 

48 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


49 


than  the  “ Frari  Madonna  ” ; and  the  steady,  strong 
growth  in  breadth  and  power  and  fulness  shown  in 
his  other  two  capital  pieces  in  Venice,  the  ‘‘  Madonna 
of  San  Zaccaria  ” and  the  “ Saints  Jerome,  Chris- 
topher and  Augustine  ” of  San  Giovanni  Crisostomo, 
is  truly  wonderful.  They  are  badly  lighted,  and  the 
former  can  be  seen  to  advantage  only  in  the  late 
afternoon,  when  the  westering  sun  floods  the  church 
and  lights  up  its  dark  comers,  but  they  are  noble 
works  of  art,  and,  for  the  moment,  almost  incline 
one  to  accept  Durer’s  dictum  that  Bellini  was,  in 
his  old  age,  “ still  the  best  painter  of  them  all.” 
The  quality  of  most  of  the  Titians  here  aids  one  to 
feel  this.  But  though  Bellini  is  a flne  painter,  even 
here  there  are  reservations  to  make,  and  it  is  dis- 
tinctly not  tme  that,  as  Ruskin  has  said,  “John  Bel- 
lini . . . united  in  equal  and  magnificent  measures 
justness  of  drawing,  nobleness  of  colouring,  and  per- 
fect manliness  of  treatment  with  the  purest  religious 
feeling.”  “ Justness  of  drawing,”  even  at  his  best,  he 
had  not.  His  Madonnas’  faces  are  still  enthralled 
by  the  Byzantine  ideal,  and,  if  sweet,  are  feeble; 
even  his  more  portrait-like  accessory  heads  are  thor- 
oughly well  drawn  only  when  in  profile,  and  his 
attempts  at  foreshortening  are  distinctly  bad ; while 
his  treatment  of  the  nude,  as  in  the  St.  Sebastian 
of  the  large  picture  in  the  Academy,  or  the  St. 
Christopher  in  the  picture  mentioned  above,  is 
meagre  and  primitive.  The  numerous  works  by 


50 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


him  in  the  Academy  are  nearly  all  second-rate  and 
need  not  detain  us. 

Destructive  criticism  has  almost  reduced  Giorgione 
to  a myth,  and  there  is  little  in  Venice  to  help  one  to 
a belief  in  him.  The  “ Soldier  and  Gypsy,”  in  the 
Palazzo  Giovanelli,  is  inaccessible,  and  the  “Apollo 
and  Daphne”  in  the  Seminario  Patriarcale,  which  is 
said  to  be  “genuine  but  retouched,”  is  certainly 
greatly  inferior  to  many  of  the  pictures  now  taken 
from  him.  Whether  it  is  his  or  not,  the  unapproach- 
able “ Partie  Champetre  ” of  the  Louvre  remains  the 
loveliest  of  the  Giorgionesque  visions,  and,  together 
with  a few  noble  portraits,  gives  us  our  clearest  notion 
of  what  Giorgione’s  influence  meant  to  the  develop- 
ment of  painting. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  greatest  name  in  Venetian 
art  and  to  the  greatest  disappointment  of  Venice. 
In  Venice  one  has  to  hold  with  both  hands  to  the 
memory  of  the  splendid  portraits,  the  wonderful  small 
canvases,  the  single  nude  figures,  that  one  has  seen 
elsewhere,  to  retain  one’s  respect  and  veneration  for 
the  name  of  Titian.  He  has  only  one  great  canvas 
in  the  Ducal  Palace,  for  which  I am  inclined  to  be 
thankful,  but  the  churches  are  full  of  his  altar  pieces, 
and  they  are  almost  all  of  them  pompous  and  unin- 
teresting and  (let  me  risk  the  word)  mediocre.  Many 
of  the  lesser  men  show  better  than  he.  Palma’s 
“ Santa  Barbara  ” is  better  than  almost  any  of  the 
Titians  here,  and  Bonifazio  and  Paris  Bordone  and 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


61 


Pordenone  and  even  Lorenzo  Lotto  are  often  more 
interesting.  His  “Doge  Grimani”  not  only  shows 
“want  of  feeling  and  coarseness  of  conception,”  as 
Ruskin  very  justly  remarks,  but  is  badly  composed 
and  not  well  painted,  and  is  quite  unpleasant  in  colour. 
His  “ Assumption,”  in  the  Belle  Arti,  is  usually 
labelled  his  masterpiece.  It  is  theatrical  in  its 
arrangement;  the  figures  are  common  in  type  and 
(several  of  them)  badly  drawn ; the  colour  is  bright, 
with  the  brightness  of  stained  glass,  thin,  and  lacking 
in  quality.  Tintoretto’s  “Miracle  of  St.  Mark,” 
which  hangs  near  it,  eclipses  it  utterly.  Some  of  the 
nude  baby  bodies  are  adorably  painted,  and  in  them 
only  does  Titian  show  himself.  It  is  so  with  picture 
after  picture.  From  the  early  “ St.  Mark  ” in  the 
Salute,  much  bewhiskered  and  surrounded  by  stumpy, 
big-headed  saints,  to  the  melancholy  mouldiness  of 
the  Pieta  in  the  Academy,  his  last  work,  of  which  the 
colour  and  texture  resemble  nothing  but  old  cheese, 
there  is  hardly  a really  fine  work — ^hardly  one  that 
is  felt — that  seems  painted  with  conviction.  The 
“ Peter  Martyr,”  which  must  have  been  a great 
picture,  is  gone,  but  the  “ St.  Lawrence  ” is  here,  and 
the  “ Annunciation  ” in  San  Salvatore,  and  the 
“ Presentation  of  the  Virgin,”  and  “ San  Giovanni 
Elemosinario  ” ; and  the  guide-books  give  long  quota- 
tions about  them  from  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle,  in 
which  all  the  adjectives  are  exhausted  in  the  effort  to 
convey  an  idea  of  their  transcendent  grandeur  and 


52 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


beauty.  The  tourist  looks  and  wonders  and  tries  to 
admire,  and  doesn’t,  and  imagines  that  art  is  a 
strange  sealed  book.  The  “Presentation”  is  flat 
and  hard  and  commonplace,  and  the  others  are  grimy 
and  brown  and  woolly,  and  commonplace  too. 

One  is  almost  tempted,  finally,  to  wonder  if  it  is 
not  Titian’s  very  mediocrity  which  has  contributed 
to  the  universal  acceptance  of  his  work  and  the  over- 
whelming dominance  of  his  name.  No ; Titian  was 
unquestionably  a very  great  painter,  and  even  in 
Venice  one  may  see  it  occasionally.  The  “ Pesaro 
Madonna  ” is  a fine  picture,  and  there  is  one  other 
even  finer.  But  the  “ Pesaro  Madonna  ” might  seem 
nearly  as  cold  and  pompous  as  some  of  the  others 
were  it  not  for  the  portraits,  which  save  it ; and  when 
one’s  eye  lights  on  the  little  head  in  the  corner — is  it 
a boy’s  or  a young  woman’s,  that  fair  head  with  its 
mild,  steady  glance  and  the  white  silk  sleeve  and 
shoulder  telling  so  finely  against  the  flesh.? — one  has 
surprised  Titian’s  secret.  He  was  purely  a painter, 
and  above  all  a portraitist,  and  his  heart  was  not  in 
these  big  canvases,  painted  because  altar  pieces  were 
in  demand.  It  is  not  lack  of  “ religious  feeling  ” 
that  makes  them  inferior — he  probably  had  as  much 
as  Veronese,  who  is  superb — but  lack  of  decorative 
feeling.  Instead  of  regretting  that  Titian  was  em- 
ployed so  much  in  painting  portraits  of  kings  and 
emperors  or  easel-pictures  for  their  cabinets,  what 
we  should  regret  is  that  he  was  ever  employed  at  any- 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


53 


thing  else.  He  was  the  greatest  of  portrait-painters 
and  of  the  painters  of  the  nude.  Give  him  a limited 
space  and  a model,  and  he  is  unsurpassable.  But  his 
grand  “ machines,”  his  tableaux  d^apparat,  are  mostly 
failures.  In  the  Scuola  di  San  Rocco,  on  the  stair- 
case, high  over  a door  and  nearly  invisible,  is  a little 
picture  of  two  figures  not  over  half  life-size,  an 
Annunciation,”  which  is  the  one  Titian  in  Venice  to 
which  the  much-abused  word  “masterpiece”  might 
be  fairly  applied.  It  is  badly  dried  in  and  somewhat 
browned,  but,  fortunately,  has  never  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  restorer.  It  is  a pity  that  it  cannot 
be  taken  down  and  cautiously,  most  cautiously,  cleaned 
and  placed  in  a good  light  somewhere.  It  is  one  of 
the  loveliest  and  most  delightful  pictures  I know.  I 
got  up  on  a ladder  and  studied  it,  close  to,  at 
my  leisure.  This  is  Titian,  Titian  at  his  best,  the 
absolute  painter — as  charming  in  sentiment  as  it  is 
consummate  in  quiet  mastery  of  execution ; and 
nothing  else  in  Venice  seems  quite  as  perfect  as  this. 

Perhaps  the  strangest  genius  in  the  roll  of  great 
artists  is  Tintoretto.  A great  genius  he  unquestion- 
ably was,  yet  no  other  great  painter  sinks  so  low.  If 
Titian  is  often  mediocre,  Tintoretto  is  often,  perhaps 
most  often,  downright  bad — ^bad  with  a thorough, 
uncompromising  badness  that  is  surprising.  His 
bad  pictures  are  at  once  vulgar  in  conception,  sprawl- 
ing and  disorganised  in  composition,  lumpy  and 
exaggerated  or  actually  feeble  in  drawing,  insuffer- 


54 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


ably  careless  in  execution,  and  black,  dirty,  and 
unpleasant  in  colour.  And  the  very  worst  of  his  bad 
pictures  are  collected  together  in  that  shrine  where 
the  faithful  flock  of  Mr.  Ruskin  goes  to  worship,  the 
Scuola  di  San  Rocco.  His  Baedeker  tells  the  tourist 
that  the  Tintorettos  in  San  Giorgio  Maggiore 
are  “daubs  redounding  to  the  painter’s  everlasting 
shame”;  why  should  it  print,  as  approving,  Mr. 
Ruskin’s  statement  that  the  worse  daubs  of  the  Scuola 
make  it  “ one  of  the  three  most  precious  buildings  in 
Italy,”  bracketing  it  with  the  Sistine  Chapel ; and  that 
“ whatever  . . . the  traveller  may  miss  in  Venice  ” he 
should  give  it  “ unembarrassed  attention  and  un- 
broken time”?  I believe  that,  ^vith.  the  exception 
of  the  little  Titian  mentioned  above,  there  is  scarcely 
a picture  in  the  Scuola  di  San  Rocco  that  has  any 
value  other  than  as  an  awful  warning,  or  that  is 
worth  five  minutes  of  the  time  of  any  one  but  the 
professed  critic  and  historian  of  art. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  one  about  these  pictures 
is  that  they  are  in  the  most  wretched  state  of  preser- 
vation— or  rather  of  ^A7^preservation.  The  blues  have 
faded  to  ashy  whiteness,  and  the  other  tints  have 
blackened,  until  any  merit  they  may  have  possessed 
is  lost  forever.  They  are  mere  wrecks,  and  they  are 
not  wrecks  of  great  pictures.  They  never  can  have 
been  anything  but  scrawled  and  hasty  sketches 
painted  like  the  scenery  of  a small  theatre.  Neither 
do  I find  them  more  powerful  or  interesting  in  con- 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


55 


ception  than  in  execution.  The  “Massacre  of  the 
Innocents  ” is  about  as  interesting  as  an  average 
Salon  picture.  The  Madonna  of  the  “Annuncia- 
tion” is  inconceivably  coarse  in  type  and  careless 
in  execution,  and  the  cataract  of  cherubs  rushing 
over  the  transom  is  theatrical  rather  than  dramatic. 
As  for  the  wonderful  meanings  which  Mr.  Ruskin 
has  found  in  these  pictures,  one  can  account  for  them 
only  on  the  ground  that  the  pictures  are  so  dim  and 
black  that  one  can  fancy  anything  in  them.  He  sees 
in  the  “Baptism”  a multitude  of  the  heavenly  host 
seated  upon  the  clouds,  and  beneath,  in  the  calm 
sky,  Christ  carried  away  by  the  Spirit  to  the  temp- 
tation in  the  wilderness.  In  reality  Tintoretto 
painted  a group  of  human  spectators  on  the  river 
bank,  and  below  them  is  nothing  but  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  sky  in  the  water.  But  it  is  useless  to 
go  on.  Only  remark  that  I do  not  except  even  “ The 
Crucifixion,”  Tintoretto’s  “masterpiece,”  from  the 
indictment.  It  is  slightly  better  than  the  others,  but 
only  slightly.  It  has  all  the  faults  of  the  Baroque 
in  architecture  and  sculpture,  and  one  is  puzzled  to 
understand  how  that  hater  of  the  Baroque,  Mr.  Rus- 
kin, should  admire  it  in  painting. 

There  are  many  more  bad  Tintorettos  in  Venice, 
but  we  may  pass  them  by  and  occupy  ourselves  with 
the  good  ones,  which  are  in  considerable  numbers,  too, 
fortunately,  and  which  are  almost  as  astonishingly 
good  as  the  bad  ones  are  bad — so  good  as  to  leave 


56 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


one  wondering  how  the  painter  who  was  capable  of 
such  work  could  ever  have  been  guilty  of  the  others. 
One  is  not  only  puzzled,  but  exasperated  by  the  man. 
Perhaps  the  best  of  them  all  is  the  “ Pallas  Driving 
av/ay  Mars  ” in  the  Anticollegio  of  the  Ducal  Palace. 
Tintoretto  has  four  smallish  pictures  in  this  room 
Vvhich  are,  if  you  like,  masterpieces.  The  “ Bacchus 
and  Ariadne”  is  the  best  known,  and  is,  in  part, 
superb,  but  the  figure  of  Ariadne  has  faded  and  lost 
its  glazes,  and  is  clay-coloured  and  cold.  Her  head 
can  never  have  been  anything  but  characterless,  and 
it  is  only  the  floating  figure  that  is  of  Tintoretto’s 
very  best.  Plow  shall  one  describe  the  “Pallas  and 
Mars”.?  Titian  plus  Correggio  is  as  near  to  its 
formula  as  one  can  come,  but  there  is  much  in  it  that 
is  neither  Titian  nor  Correggio,  and  which  no  one 
but  Tintoretto  could  have  done.  The  fulness  and 
glow  of  colour  is  Titian  at  his  best,  but  Titian  with  a 
difference — Titian  inclining  to  the  blue  and  green 
of  the  scale  and  away  from  the  red  and  yellow.  The 
richness  of  light  and  shade,  the  glow  of  the  lovely 
knees  and  rounded  arms,  and  the  transparent  depths 
of  shadow,  are  like  Correggio,  but  a Correggio  of 
more  daring  invention  and  shorn  of  the  affectations 
and  prettinesses  adored  of  school-girls.  The  lithe  sup- 
pleness of  full-muscled  form,  the  adorable  distinction 
of  the  delicately  poised  heads,  with  their  shining 
braids  of  golden-brown  hair,  the  firm  hands,  with  their 
square-ended  fingers — these  are  Tintoretto,  and  none 


TINTORETTO:  PALLAS  DRIVING  AWAY  MARS 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


57 


other;  one  of  the  first  painters  of  all  time  when  he 
took  the  time  to  be  so. 

There  are  two  other  Tintorettos  in  the  Ducal 
Palace  that  no  lover  of  painting  should  fail  to  see, 
“Saints  Jerome  and  Andrew”  and  “Saints  Lewis, 
Margaret  and  George  with  the  Dragon,”  in  the  anti- 
chamber of  the  chapel.  They  are  high  up  over 
doors,  of  the  quiet,  gray  type  of  Tintoretto’s  work, 
and  might  pass  unnoticed,  but  they  are  masterly 
in  every  touch,  and  show,  perhaps,  more  colourist’s 
power  in  their  grayness  than  many  a gorgeous  Titian. 
This  style  of  colouring  in  a subdued  half -tint  of 
grayish  quality,  neither  golden  nor  silvery  nor  black, 
was  one  in  which  Tintoretto  did  much  of  his  best 
work ; witness  the  “ Crucifixion  ” in  San  Cassiano — a 
noble  picture  and  infinitely  superior  to  the  “ Cruci- 
fixion ” of  the  Scuola  di  San  Rocco.  The  “ Paradiso  ” 
is  “the  largest  oil  painting  in  the  world,”  and,  for 
me,  that  is  almost  its  only  distinction.  It  is  not  very 
bad,  but  it  is  too  big  to  be  very  good.  Probably  no 
one  else  could  have  done  it  so  well,  but  no  one  could 
hold  a picture  of  that  size  together,  or  paint  that 
vast  concourse  of  figures  with  more  than  occasional 
felicity.  The  other  Tintorettos  in  the  Ducal  Palace 
are  of  varying  degrees  of  badness  almost  to  the  very 
worst. 

At  the  Madonna  dell’  Orto  are  the  two  big  and  tur- 
bulent compositions  of  “The  Last  Judgment”  and 
“ The  Golden  Calf,”  wonderful  in  their  way,  but  not 


58 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


beautiful;  the  “Presentation,”  attributed  by  some  to 
Domenico  Tintoretto,  of  which  one  half  is  magnifi- 
cent and  the  other  intolerable ; and,  smaller  than  these, 
but  still  a large  picture,  “ The  Miracle  of  St.  Agnes.” 
This,  even  more  than  the  “ Marriage  in  Cana  ” at  the 
Salute,  though  that  too  is  a superlatively  fine  picture, 
especially  in  its  row  of  female  heads,  is  an  exam- 
ple of  Tintoretto’s  marvellous  power  over  light  and 
shade.  It  is  held  together  like  a small  Rembrandt,  and 
has  as  much  depth  and  luminosity  and  sense  of  values, 
with  finer  colour.  The  composition  is  dignified  and 
the  types  are  noble,  and  the  only  fault  to  be  found 
in  it  is  in  its  upper  portion,  where  the  flight  of  kick- 
ing, blue  angels  reminds  us  a little  too  much  of  the 
painter’s  capricious  moments.  Finally,  there  is  the 
astonishing  “ Miracle  of  St.  Mark  ” at  the  Academy, 
which  is  quite  unlike  any  other  Tintoretto  or  any  other 
Italian  picture  that  I know  of.  It  is  not  without  its 
faults ; occasionally  the  drawing  is  careless  and  more 
often  turgid;  and,  while  the  colour  is  brilliant  and 
gorgeous  in  the  highest  degree,  the  tone  is  not  as 
perfect,  the  unity  not  quite  as  thorough,  as  in  some 
of  his  quieter  canvases.  What  distinguishes  it  par- 
ticularly and  places  it  among  the  world’s  great  mas- 
terpieces is  its  amazing  virtuosity.  It  seems  to  have 
been  painted  throughout  alia  prima — at  one  jet — 
with  no  underpainting  and  very  little  glazing,  in  a 
method  more  suggestive  of  Rubens  or  Hals  than  of 
any  Italian  work.  The  handling  is  less  flowing  and 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


59 


slippery  than  with  Rubens,  less  abrupt  and  chippy 
than  with  Hals ; the  tone  is  more  full  and  transparent 
than  with  Velasquez ; but  the  instantaneous  touch,  the 
economy  of  means,  the  marvellous  precision,  place  him 
with  these  three  as  one  of  the  unapproachable  tech- 
nicians— one  of  the  few  who  have  made  the  mere 
material  endlessly  delightful  to  the  lover  of  painting. 
The  broad  modelling  of  the  nude,  foreshortened  body 
of  the  slave,  with  its  impasted  lights  sliding  imper- 
ceptibly into  its  thinly  rubbed  shadows,  the  extraor- 
dinarily living  head  of  the  old  man  at  the  left  (said 
to  be  the  master  himself),  painted  with  a few  sharp, 
countable,  yet  liquid  touches;  the  magnificent  sweep 
of  the  brush  as  it  places  the  lights  in  the  mass  of 
drapery  on  the  back  of  the  executioner  and  unerringly 
models  the  brawny  forms  beneath ; the  painting,  with 
three  or  four  flowing  strokes  apiece,  of  the  broken 
implements  in  the  foreground — these  things,  added  to 
a feeling  for  style  and  grandeur  of  form  truly  Italian, 
and  a colour-sense  as  truly  Venetian  in  its  richness, 
make  this  picture  a “miracle”  indeed.  How  could 
its  author  have  been  guilty  of  the  shameless  scurry- 
ing of  the  Scuola? 

Before  leaving  Tintoretto,  let  me  record  a small 
discovery  of  my  own  which  may  not  be  without  inter- 
est. In  the  Museo  Civico  there  are  two  small  can- 
vases, between  two  and  three  feet  high,  which  are 
either  sketches  for  or  copies  of  “The  Last  Judg- 
ment” and  “The  Golden  Calf,”  it  doesn’t  matter 


60 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


which.  Looking  at  these,  I was  struck  with  a curious 
identity  between  two  figures,  one  in  either  picture. 
It  was  not  at  all  the  identity  of  two  figures  copied 
from  the  same  drawing,  but  the  identity  of  a statue 
seen  from  two  different  points  of  view.  One  figure 
is  nearly  upright,  flying  upward  and  seen  from  the 
back  ; the  other  is  falling  head  first  and  strongly  fore- 
shortened ; but  the  relative  positions  of  the  limbs,  the 
turn  of  the  head  on  the  shoulders,  the  peculiar  angle 
of  the  feet,  are  unmistakably  the  same.  On  further 
looking  I found  a third  figure  in  which  the  same  pose 
occurred,  drawn  from  still  a third  point  of  view  and 
with  an  alteration  of  the  action  of  one  arm.  There 
is  a well-known  story  of  how  Tintoretto  studied  fore- 
shortening and  light  and  shade  by  means  of  small 
wax  models  hung  up  by  threads  in  different  positions 
and  in  different  lights.  Here  was  the  proof  of  the 
story,  and  I felt  that  I had  caught  the  painter  in 
the  act.  He  had  used  the  same  maquette  twice,  if 
not  three  times,  in  composing  these  two  pictures,  and 
with  a result  so  different,  pictorially,  that  only 
accident  disclosed  the  fact. 

As  for  the  greatest  painter  of  them  all,  in  my  opin- 
ion, Veronese, — triumphant  in  Venice  as  he  is 
everywhere — another  of  these  essays  is  devoted  en- 
tirely to  him,  and  I may  omit  him  here.  After 
two  hundred  years  a sort  of  bastard  son  was  born 
to  him.  Tiepolo  is  of  the  eighteenth  century,  is 
Rococo;  he  is  coquet  rather  than  sumptuous,  amus- 


THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 


61 


ing  and  immensely  clever  rather  than  grand;  but 
one  feels  that  the  blood  of  the  great  decorator  is  run- 
ning in  his  veins.  In  the  “Antony  and  Cleopatra” 
of  the  Palazzo  Labia  there  is  a more  wilful  resem- 
blance to  Veronese  than  elsewhere,  an  attempt  at  his 
pomp  of  arrangement,  and  an  imitation  of  his  cos- 
tumes. It  is  remarkably  able,  but  perhaps  less  indi- 
vidual and  less  charming  than  others  of  his  works. 
The  great  ceilings  of  the  Gesuiti  and  the  Pieta  are 
Tiepolo  pure  and  simple.  Nothing  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  so  characteristic  of  the  epoch,  or,  in  its 
way,  so  fine.  Tiepolo  is  as  delightful  as  Watteau 
or  Boucher,  while  enough  of  the  old  Venetian  glory 
hangs  about  him  to  make  him  greatly  their  superior 
in  power.  His  great  breadths  of  sky,  with  masses  of 
cool  or  dun-coloured  clouds,  perfect  in  harmony  of 
tone;  his  audaciously  foreshortened  angels,  with  their 
long,  elegant  legs  hanging  out  of  swathes  of  volumi- 
nous drapery ; the  creamy  light  of  a naked  breast  or 
shoulder,  and  the  floating  half-tint  that  obscures  a 
graceful  arm ; the  pale  colouring  of  the  whole  relieved 
by  an  occasional  snapping  black — these  make  up  a 
ravishing  operatic  heaven,  a sort  of  celestial  ballet. 
In  the  ceilings  of  the  Scuola  dei  Carminl  he  seems 
even  more  delightfully  impudent.  One  imagines  a 
conclave  of  devout  Carmelite  monks  gazing  aloft  in 
spiritual  meditation  at  decorations  that  seem  made 
only  for  the  boudoir  of  a powdered  marquise  of 
undoubtful  reputation — at  a - St.  Agnes,  type  of 


62  THE  PICTURES  OF  VENICE 

innocence,  with  her  lamb,  too  innocent  to  know  that 
her  voluminous  skirts  cover  neither  her  legs  nor  her 
breast — at  rollicking  she-angels  soaring  overhead  in 
complete  carelessness  of  the  laws  of  perspective — and 
one  is  lost  in  wonder  and  admiration  at  that  prepos- 
terous century.  Tiepolo  had  an  enormous  talent. 
His  knowledge  is  prodigious,  and  his  audacity  equal 
to  anything.  He  lacks  only  a certain  gravity  and 
largeness — the  magnificent  seriousness  of  the  great 
painters — to  rank  among  the  greatest.  He  is  the 
last  of  the  old  masters,  and  the  cleverest  of  the 
moderns. 


VERONESE 


None  of  the  great  masters  of  painting  has 
been  so  little  or  so  inadequately  written  of 
as  Paul  Veronese.  In  these  days  of  ex- 
haustive monographs  no  one  seems  to  have  thought  it 
worth  while  to  collect  the  facts  of  his  life  or  to  examine 
and  catalogue  his  works ; and  even  in  books  of  general 
art  history  or  art  criticism,  where  he  must,  perforce,  be 
mentioned,  he  has  rarely  received  the  attention  he 
deserves.  He  is  apt  to  be  brought  in  a poor  third  or 
fourth,  after  the  other  great  Venetians  are  done  with, 
and  dismissed  by  the  critics  with  half-hearted  praise 
or  a bare  acknowledgment  that  he  “ shows  as  yet  no 
trace  of  the  approaching  period  of  decline,”  and 
“ maintains  the  best  traditions  of  his  school.”  The 
painters,  indeed,  have  known  him  for  what  he  was, 
and  have  shown  their  appreciation,  now  and  then, 
in  passages  of  glowing  praise;  and  Ruskin,  if  he 
did  not  altogether  understand  him,  yet  felt  his 
power;  but  his  art  still  awaits  an  authoritative  ex- 
position. Its  very  sanity  and  simplicity  is  one  of  the 
reasons  for  this,  and  its  magnificent  and  rounded 
completeness  is  another.  Its  qualities  seem  too  obvious 
to  need  explanation,  and  there  are  no  enigmas  in  it  to 
attract  the  readers  of  riddles,  no  recondite  allusions 
or  strange  ways  of  telling  old  stories ; it  is  all  straight- 

63 


64j 


VERONESE 


forward,  unaffected  painter’s  work,  and  the  literary 
hunter  of  meanings  finds  little  there  to  his  purpose. 
Also,  the  world  loves  a specialist,  and  the  critic  who  is 
enamoured  of  line  writes  of  Botticelli,  while  he  who 
cares  most  for  light  and  shade  devotes  himself  to 
Rembrandt.  To  be  too  well  poised  is  dangerous ; to 
have  too  many  good  qualities  is  to  run  some  risk  of 
getting  little  credit  for  any  of  them. 

The  world  loves  a specialist,  and  it  is  very  loath  to 
believe  in  the  existence  of  anything  else.  Because 
Titian  was  a colourist  many  people  can  remain  blind  to 
the  extraordinary  power  of  design  which  the  rudest 
wood-cut  after  one  of  his  great  pictures  should  reveal 
to  them;  Michelangelo  was  a draughtsman,  and  it  is 
only  after  four  hundred  years  that  we  are  beginning 
to  understand  that  the  painter  of  the  Sistine  ceiling 
was,  after  his  fashion,  a master  of  colour.  Veronese 
was  long  ago  comfortably  labelled  “ Decorator,”  and, 
aided  by  an  inadequate  conception  of  decoration,  the 
world  has  imagined  that  he  was  nothing  else,  and  has 
treated  him  much  as  if  he  were  another  Pintoricchio — 
a man  who  could,  indeed,  embellish  a palace  wall  with 
splendid  colour,  but  whose  other  artistic  qualities  were 
comparatively  negligible. 

No  such  thorough  study  of  the  art  of  Veronese  as 
is  to  be  desired  could  be  made  in  this  short  essay,  even 
had  I the  knowledge  necessary  to  attempt  it.  I can 
deal  with  only  a few  of  the  great  paintings  he  pro- 
duced with  such  astonishing  profusion,  and,  precisely 


VERONESE 


65 


because  his  position  as  a great  decorator  is  univer- 
sally acknowledged,  I shall  deal  with  them,  at  first, 
as  pictures,  and  as  if  thr^;  had  no  more  specifically 
decorative  purpose  than  that  common  to  all  great 
works  of  art. 

Like  most  of  the  greatest  painters,  Veronese  was  a 
master  of  portraiture,  and  his  pictures  are  full  of 
portraits,  identified  or  unidentified.  Not  all  the  figures 
in  the  great  “ Marriage  in  Cana  ” of  the  Louvre  may 
be  correctly  named  by  tradition,  though  there  can 
be  little  doubt  as  to  the  group  of  painters,  includ- 
ing Titian,  Tintoretto,  and  himself,  who  provide  the 
music  for  the  feast,  but  the  other  figures  are  none  the 
less  portraits  because  we  may  not  know  who  sat  for 
them.  No  one  but  a great  portrait  painter  could  have 
painted  that  stout,  clean-shaven  old  man  in  the 
smaller  “ Marriage  in  Cana,”  at  Dresden,  or  the 
hawk-like  profile  of  the  man  behind  who  drinks  from 
a shallow  glass.  The  wife  and  daughter  of  Darius  in 
the  National  Gallery  picture  are  evidently  portraits, 
and  charming  ones,  while  half  the  “ Supper  at  Em- 
inaus  ” in  the  Louvre,  and  two-thirds  of  the  “ Cuccina 
Family  before  the  Madonna”  at  Dresden,  are  made 
up  of  professed  portrait  groups.  The  principal  figure 
in  the  latter  group,  robust  and  matronly  as  becomes 
the  mother  of  many  children,  her  still  comely  head 
brought  out  by  the  white  robe  of  Faith,  who  stands  di- 
rectly behind  her,  and  made  the  centre  around  which 
the  lines  of  the  composition  circle,  seems  to  me  one  of 


66 


VERONESE 


the  loveliest  and  tenderest  pieces  of  portraiture  in  all 
art.  The  single  portrait  Veronese  painted  less  often, 
but  that  he  could  paint  it  supremely  well  the  “ Daniele 
Barbaro”  of  the  Pitti  Palace,  among  others,  testifies. 
The  dignity  of  a great  Venetian  noble  has  never  been 
better  rendered,  not  even  by  Titian  or  Tintoretto; 
and  there  is  vigorous  characterisation  also,  and  every 
quality  of  a fine  portrait,  except,  perhaps,  that  in- 
tensity of  inner  life  which  one  or  two  of  the  greatest 
painters  have,  now  and  then,  managed  to  convey  to 
us.  For  Veronese  is  not  a painter  of  the  intimate — 
it  is  a large  and  general  view  he  takes  of  things,  in 
some  sort  an  external  view;  and  yet  there  is  that 
exquisitely  sympathetic  rendering  of  the  mother  of  the 
Cuccina  Family  to  show  that  he  could  be  intimate,  too, 
when  he  chose. 

If  we  consider  the  portraiture  of  a people  and  a 
time  rather  than  the  portraiture  of  the  individual, 
Veronese  is  without  a superior  if  not  without  a rival. 
What  painter  has  given  us  more  information  as  to  the 
types  and  costumes  of  his  epoch?  Who  has  better 
depicted  the  life  of  his  own  countrymen  in  his  own 
day?  And  what  a sumptuous  life  it  is  that  he  depicts. 
There  is  a large  impartiality  about  the  man  and  a 
sense  of  humour  that  is  not  common  in  Italian  art. 
He  takes  life  as  it  is,  and  finds  the  “ dwarfs  and  Ger- 
mans ” he  was  reproached  with  almost  as  interesting 
as  their  masters  and  mistresses.  Important  things  are 
going  on  in  his  pictures,  but ‘monkeys  will  scratch 


VERONESE 


67 


themselves  on  the  marble  balustrades  and  dogs  and 
cats  will  fight  under  the  table,  as  is  their  nature  to. 
It  is  so  that  things  happen  in  the  world,  and  he 
has  no  notion  that  anything  is  beneath  the  dignity 
of  art.  But  if  he  can  see  and  paint  these  things, 
who  could  see  and  paint  so  well  the  splendour,  the 
refinement,  the  wealth  of  the  richest  of  cities.?  He 
has  been  called  the  painter  of  the  pride  of  life,  and 
certainly  no  one  has  given  us  such  a sense  of  the 
possible  nobility  and  beauty  of  a life  of  luxurious 
idleness  dignified  and  polished  by  the  love  of  art.  He 
has  the  true  portrait  painter’s  love  for  costume,  the 
true  painter’s  love  for  rich  colours  and  brilliant  or 
gorgeous  stuffs;  and  he  has  that  mastery  of  instan- 
taneous execution  which  has  been  the  mark  of  portrait 
painters  oftener  than  of  other  artists — which  has 
characterised  Velasquez  and  Hals  rather  than  Raphael 
or  Michelangelo.  His  handling  is  not  so  noticeable 
as  that  of  these  masters  of  the  brush,  but  it  is  as  sure 
and  as  rapid,  and  it  plays  with  difficulties  which  have 
ceased  to  be  difficulties  for  him — difficulties  overcome 
so  easily  that  unless  you  are  painter  enough  to  appre- 
ciate them  you  will  not  think  of  them  at  all,  and  will 
miss  the  exhilaration  of  seeing  them  vanquished.  He 
will  paint  you  a rich  brocade  of  white  and  gold  with 
every  inch  of  its  pattern  clearly  traceable  as  it  wanders 
in  and  out  among  the  folds,  and  he  will  do  it  so  quietly, 
so  rightly,  so  naturally,  that  you  shall  not  even 
suspect  that  it  is  a hard  thing  to  do ; he  will  paint  you 


68 


VERONESE 


a mantle  of  shot  silk  with  every  half-tone  and  every 
shadow  right  in  depth  and  in  colour,  and  every  fold 
true  to  the  shape  which  the  texture  of  the  material 
gives  it,  and  he  will  do  it  with  the  fewest  possible 
touches,  yet  with  no  ostentation  of  cleverness.  He 
will  paint  you  armour,  or  jewels,  or  gold  and  silver 
plate,  with  the  same  ease  and  the  same  perfection,  and 
he  will  cover  with  such  things  a canvas  thirty  feet 
long  without  haste  as  without  fatigue.  For  sheer 
profusion  and  abundance  there  has  been  no  one  like 
him  save  Rubens,  and  Rubens  had  not  his  taste  or  his 
reticence.  They  are  splendid  figures  that  throng  the 
canvases  of  the  master  of  Antwerp,  but  they  seem 
splendid  barbarians  beside  the  grave  citizens  of  the 
most  cultivated  city  in  Europe. 

All  the  Venetian  painters  were  landscapists,  and 
Veronese  not  less  so  than  the  others,  though  his  land- 
scape is  different  in  quality.  Of  the  greater  Vene- 
tians only  Tintoretto  was  Venetian  born,  but  the  town- 
bred  Veronese  looked  at  nature  diflPerently  from 
Giorgio  of  Castelfranco  or  Titian  of  Cadore.  He  had 
a fine  sense  of  the  growth  of  trees,  and  the  plumy 
massiveness  of  his  foliage  is  superb,  but  he  cared  little 
for  wild  scenery  and  seldom  introduced  a mountain 
in  his  distances.  He  could  do  whatever  he  chose,  and 

1 

so,  when  the  subject  demanded  it,  he  could  paint  a hill 
fortress  or  a bit  of  sea-shore,  as  in  the  several  versions 
of  the  “Europa,”  but  by  choice  he  seldom  strays  far 
into  the  country,  and  one  of  the  most  complete  of  his 


VERONESE 


69 


landscapes  is  the  background  of  “ The  Finding  of 
Moses,”  at  Dresden,  with  its  evident  reminiscence  of 
his  native  town  upon  the  Adige.  In  general  the 
elements  of  his  landscape  are  architecture  and  sky — 
the  landscape  of  cities — and  no  one  has  ever  painted 
them  so  beautifully  as  he.  Architecture  plays  an  im- 
portant part  in  almost  every  one  of  his  pictures,  from 
the  columns  which  separate  the  heavenly  from  the 
earthly  personages  in  the  “ Cuccina  Family  ” to  the 
grand  setting  of  the  great  “ Marriage  in  Cana.” 
Even  in  the  “ Europa  ” he  could  not  get  on  without  a 
pyramid.  In  one  of  the  ceiling  panels  of  the  Ducal 
Palace,  though  this  is  executed,  likely  enough,  by  a 
pupil,  there  is  a literal  representation  of  the  Campanile 
of  San  Marco  that  is  the  likest  thing  to  the  real  Venice 
of  anything  I know  in  painting.  In  general  Vero- 
nese’s architecture  is  more  ideal,  and  I cannot  say 
how  far  it  may  satisfy  an  architect  in  its  structure  and 
design,  but  its  exquisite  lightness  and  the  justness 
with  which  its  silvery  colour  relieves  against  the  sky 
is  beyond  praise.  To  the  sky  itself  he  gave  more 
variety  and  truth  of  form,  I think,  than  any  painter 
of  his  time,  and  a beauty  of  colour  not  to  be  excelled. 
His  white  towers  and  thronged  balconies  against  the 
blue  were  never  built  in  actual  stone,  but  there  is 
more  of  the  spirit  and  beauty  of  Venice  in  them  than 
any  of  her  children  have  given  us,  or  any  of  the 
countless  artists  that  have  since  haunted  her  silent 
streets. 


70 


VERONESE 


But  it  is,  after  all,  in  the  large  treatment  of  light 
and  the  unity  of  tone  maintained  throughout  a vast 
composition  that  Veronese  is  most  the  landscape- 
painter,  and  as  these  great  canvases  of  his  are  filled 
with  figures,  it  may  almost  be  said  that  he  is  never  so 
much  the  landscapist  as  in  the  painting  of  men  and 
women.  Each  of  his  countless  figures  may  have  all 
the  vitality  of  a portrait,  each  may  be  robed  in  splendid 
garments,  perfectly  rendered,  but  each  will  have  its 
exact  amount  of  light  from  the  sky  upon  it,  its  exact 
distance  marked  from  objects  in  front  of  or  beyond 
it,  its  due  amount  of  atmosphere  enveloping  it.  His 
colour  can  be  deep  and  resonant  on  occasion,  but  it 
has  not  the  twilight  glow  or  stained-glass  brilliancy 
of  Titian;  rather  it  has  the  silvery  clearness  of  open 
daylight.  He  is  fond  of  the  play  of  light  and  shade, 
and  uses  cast  shadows  with  almost  the  rich  fantasy  of 
Tintoretto,  but  there  is  never  a space  of  obscurity  in 
his  pictures,  never  a hint  of  blackness ; the  light  pene- 
trates the  deepest  nooks  and  reverberates  from  corner 
to  corner,  and  everywhere  falls  upon  some  definite 
object  having  a definite  place.  I know  no  other 
painter  who,  making  the  figure  his  principal  subject 
and  working  on  a monumental  scale,  has  so  nearly 
realised  our  modern  ideal  of  the  painting  of  natural 
light. 

So  far  of  Veronese’s  naturalism  in  depicting  the  life 
he  saw  about  him,  of  his  almost  unequalled  power  and 
veracity  as  a mere  painter.  But  he  was  far  more  than 


VERONESE 


71 


a painter  of  the  pageant  of  life;  he  was  a great 
painter  of  noble  and  heroic  themes — a master  of 
figure  painting  in  the  grand  Italian  manner.  He  was 
a draughtsman,  a stylist,  and  a man  of  true  and  lofty 
feeling.  In  mastery  of  drawing  he  had  no  equal  in 
Venice,  unless  it  were  Tintoretto,  and  no  superior  any- 
where except  one  or  two  of  the  greatest  Florentines. 
Now  and  then  he  is  careless,  or  perhaps  his  pupils 
intervened;  and  there  is  a kind  of  meagreness  in  the 
attachment  of  the  wrist  which  is  a frequent  failing; 
but  there  is  no  difficult  foreshortening  into  which  he 
cannot  throw  the  figure,  no  line  he  cannot  make  it  take, 
and  this  with  an  entire  absence  of  posturing  or  the 
Michelangelesque  affectations  of  Tintoretto.  Rather 
there  is  a large  simplicity  of  gesture,  one  might  almost 
say  a divine  awkwardness,  which  is  inimitable.  His 
men  are  superbly  muscled,  his  women  of  the  full- 
fleshed  Venetian  type,  white  and  soft,  with  adorable 
golden  heads,  but  with  a firmness  of  line  and  modelling 
that  is  almost  Greek.  The  attendants  of  Europa  are 
nearly  as  grand  as  the  women  of  Pheidias,  while  in 
the  figure  of  Pharaoh’s  daughter,  in  “ The  Finding  of 
Moses,”  he  has  combined  a magnificent  amplitude  with 
an  elegance  prophetic  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Always  and  everywhere  his  drawing  has  style,  and  his 
naturalism  is  never  trivial  or  commonplace. 

His  range  of  subject  and  treatment  is  wide.  In 
“ The  Finding  of  Moses  ” he  is  gay  and  familiar,  in 
the  “ Europa  ” luxuriantly  idyllic,  while  he  can  rise  to 


7^ 


VERONESE 


great  dignity  and  even  to  tragedy.  He  has  all  the 
Venetian  sensuousness,  but  he  never  sinks  to  coarse- 
ness, as  Titian  sometimes  does ; he  can  be  solemn  and, 
to  my  feeling,  profoundly  religious,  but  he  is  never 
morbid  or  sentimental.  Grave  or  playful,  he  is  always 
manly,  always  serene,  a great,  frank,  healthy,  broad- 
minded, tender  spirit.  One  feels  that  he  was  not  only . 
a genius  one  must  admire,  but  a man  one  could  have 
loved,  and  I know  of  few  painters  who  awaken  the 
kind  of  personal  affection  that  Veronese  inspires. 
Perhaps  of  all  his  qualities  that  with  which  he  has 
been  least  often  credited,  since  the  day  he  was  brought 
before  the  Inquisition  on  a charge  of  irreverence,  is 
the  possession  or  expression  of  religious  emotion ; yet 
I have  always  found  his  “ Supper  at  Emmaus,”  with 
its  family  group  at  the  side,  one  of  the  truest  and 
most  touching  of  religious  pictures.  To  his  broad 
charity  neither  the  unconscious  children  nor  the  pet 
dogs  were  out  of  place  in  the  presence  of  the  Saviour, 
and  the  head  of  the  Saviour  himself  is,  with  that  of 
Rembrandt’s  in  his  picture  of  the  same  subject,  the 
most  nearly  satisfactory  in  art.  If  Rembrandt  has 
painted  for  us  the  “ Man  of  Sorrows,”  Veronese  has 
come  near  to  giving  us  the  God;  if  Rembrandt’s 
Christ,  who  has  been  dead  and  is  alive,  gives  us  the 
thrill  of  the  supernatural,  Veronese’s  has  about  him 
some  glory  of  the  superhuman. 

Perhaps  no  single  picture  by  Veronese  shows  so 
many  of  his  great  qualities  in  such  perfection  as  the 


VERONESE 


7S 


glorious  “Martyrdom  of  Saint  George  ” in  the  Church 
of  San  Giorgio  in  Braida  in  Verona — a picture  com- 
paratively little  known,  yet  worthy  of  a high  place 
among  the  world’s  greatest  masterpieces,  both  for 
nobility  of  conception  and  perfection  of  execution. 
To  the  left  is  the  statue  of  Apollo,  to  the  right  an 
officer  on  a great  horse ; between  them,  stripped  to  the 
waist,  kneels  the  saint  surrounded  by  guards.  An 
aged  priest  stoops  over  him  and  points  to  the  idol  he 
is  asked  to  worship ; behind  him,  bare-armed  and  ready, 
the  executioner  leans  upon  his  two-handed  sword;  but 
the  saint  pays  no  attention  to  either  of  them,  for  above 
him  the  heavens  are  opened  and  he  sees  the  Madonna 
between  Peter  and  Paul,  the  Theological  Virtues,  and 
a multitude  of  angels,  making  triumphal  music.  Faith 
intercedes  for  him,  Hope  looks  down  with  encourage- 
ment, and  between  heaven  and  earth  a cherub  dashes 
headlong  toward  him  bearing  the  martyr’s  crown  and 
palm.  He  is  no  ascetic  and  no  dreamer,  this  saint,  but 
full-blooded,  black-bearded,  a man  and  a soldier,  and 
this  is  his  last  and  greatest  victory.  Lest  by  any 
chance  you  should  miss  the  significance  of  it,  the 
wings  of  the  palm-bearing  cherub,  which  alone  unite 
the  two  halves  of  the  picture,  are  almost  black  and 
cut  sharp  against  the  luminous  sky — ^the  most  con- 
spicuous dark  in  the  composition. 

The  craftsmanship  of  this  great  painting  is  in  every 
way  worthy  of  its  intellectual  content.  In  drawing, 
in  characterisation,  in  vigour  of  handling,  it  is  Veronese 


74. 


VERONESE 


at  his  best,  but  it  is  most  wonderful,  perhaps,  in  its 
treatment  of  colour.  The  lower,  or  earthly,  part  of 
it  is  full  and  rich,  approaching  nearer  than  is  common 
with  Veronese  to  Titian’s  sombre  splendour,  but  with  a 
greater  frankness  of  individual  hue,  the  blue  and  red  of 
the  saint’s  garments  approaching  the  purity  of  the 
absolute  pigment.  The  upper  part,  though  as  firmly 
drawn  and  as  completely  modelled  as  the  lower,  is 
painted  in  the  tones  of  sky — an  opalescence  of 
delicate  tints  that,  without  any  sacrifice  of  realisa- 
tion, without  a hint  of  vagueness,  yet  transforms  it 
into  a heavenly  vision.  Here,  if  ever,  the  harmonies 
of  the  palette  may  claim  a place  with  those  of  poetry 
and  music ; here,  if  ever,  the  art  of  painting  has  proved 
its  right  to  be  considered  a great  intellectual  and 
emotional  art.  The  picture  is  a splendid  hymn  of 
triumph,  and  the  triumph  is  no  less  that  of  the  painter 
than  of  the  saint. 

So  far  we  have  been  considering  the  art  of  Veronese 
without  special  reference  to  its  decorative  purpose,  and 
yet  the  instinct  that  has  caused  him  to  be  called  a 
decorator  is  a perfectly  sound  one.  A decorator  he 
was  primarily,  and  the  great  intellectual  and  technical 
qualities  we  have  been  studying  are,  after  all,  only 
the  equipment  of  the  greatest  of  decorators.  If,  how- 
ever, he  could  make  all  these  things  subservient  to  a 
decorative  end,  and  could  include  in  a thoroughly  suc- 
cessful decoration  so  much  which  we  have  thought  it 
necessary  to  eliminate,  it  is  evident  that  there  must 


VERONESE 


75 


be  something  wrong,  or  too  limited,  in  our  ideas  of 
decoration.  We  have  thought  that  respect  for  the 
flatness  of  the  wall  demanded  of  us  the  elimination  of 
modelling  and  of  light  and  shade,  and  here  is  a man 
who  models  perfectly  and  plays  with  cast  shadows,  and 
yet  never  loses  the  flatness  of  his  wall.  We  have 
thought  that  decoration  demanded  the  sacrifice  of 
realism,  yet  here  is  a great  decorator  who  is  one  of  the 
greatest  of  naturalists.  Does  it  not  behoove  those  who 
are  interested  in  the  revival  of  decorative  painting  in 
this  country  to  consult  this  master  as  to  what  are,  in 
reality,  the  essentials  of  his  art? 

In  this  country  our  notions  of  decoration  have  been 
largely  influenced  by  the  great  prestige  of  that  true 
artist,  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  and  we  have,  perhaps,  too 
often  forgotten  that  the  peculiarities  of  his  style  are 
partly  temperamental,  partly  conditioned  on  the  desti- 
nation of  his  best  works  for  buildings  of  an  austere  and 
colourless  type.  In  the  Pantheon  his  paintings  are  ad- 
mirably appropriate  and  successful,  but  in  the  more 
sumptuous  setting  of  the  Boston  Public  Library,  sur- 
rounded by  rich  marbles,  his  compositions,  noble  as 
they  are  in  themselves,  always  strike  me  as  a little 
cold  and  thin.  It  is  perhaps  because  others  have  felt 
this,  and  because  the  architecture  our  painters  are 
called  upon  to  decorate  is  often  of  precious  material 
and  richly  ornamented,  that  another  style  has  grown 
up,  partly  Byzantine,  partly  influenced  by  Pintoric- 
chio — a style  depending  on  bright  colours  and  gilding, 


76 


VERONESE 


and  even  on  the  application  of  ornaments  in  relief — 
a style  more  brilliant  and  splendid,  but,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  unnecessarily  archaic.  In  such  a setting  of  sump- 
tuous architecture  as  Veronese  worked  for  we  may 
safely  employ  Veronese’s  realisation  and  fulness  of 
modelling  if  we  can  learn  to  employ  it  as  he  did. 
What  keeps  his  work  unfailingly  decorative  is,  first 
of  all,  design,  and  then,  not  the  elimination,  but  the 
subordination  of  light  and  shade  and  modelling. 

This  subordination  Veronese  acomplished  in  an  ex- 
ceedingly subtle  manner.  He  models  completely,  but 
with  infinite  refinement  of  delicate  light  and  shade,  and 
he  never  allows  his  light  and  shadow  to  break  up  the 
broad  local  colour  of  an  object  or  to  disguise  its  outline. 
A red  drapery  remains  definitely  red,  a white  one 
definitely  white,  through  all  its  modifications,  and  tells 
as  a simple  mass  of  a certain  shape,  clearly  separable 
by  the  eye  from  all  other  masses  of  different  colour,  its 
boundaries  apparent  at  a glance.  This  treatment  is 
caused  in  part  by  that  feeling  for  breadth  of  natural 
light  already  dwelt  on,  but  its  result  is  that  every  ele- 
ment in  his  picture  is  as  visibly  part  of  a great  pattern 
of  coloured  spaces,  bounded  by  beautiful  and  interest- 
ing lines,  as  with  the  most  shadeless  of  the  primitives. 
The  very  perfection  of  science  has  attained  a result 
which  had  before  been  conditioned  on  its  absence,  and 
with  the  utmost  realisation  in  the  parts  the  picture  as 
a whole  achieves  true  decorative  flatness. 

There  is  nothing  which  so  accents  the  extent  and 


! 


VERONESE 


7T 


unity  of  a surface  as  the  sense  that  it  has  been  used 
for  the  display  of  a linear  design,  and  it  is  in  his 
mastery  of  design  that  Veronese  is  most  consummately 
the  decorator.  In  linear  composition  he  has  been  sur- 
passed by  no  one  but  Raphael,  if  even  by  him,  yet  it 
is  this  element  of  his  art — perhaps  the  most  important 
of  all—that  has  been  least  recognised.  His  colour  is 
so  entrancing,  his  execution  is  so  superlative,  his  indi- 
vidual figures  are  so  delightful,  that  the  attention  is 
distracted,  as  it  was  meant  to  be,  from  the  plan  on 
which  everything  is  arranged.  His  personages  move 
so  naturally,  are  so  intent  on  the  business  in  hand,  that 
it  is  hard  to  believe  that  each  contour  of  their  bodies, 
each  fold  of  their  draperies,  has  been  carefully  ar- 
ranged to  play  its  part  in  a rigidly  established  scheme 
of  line.  Even  his  pupils  did  not  understand  his  sys- 
tem of  composition,  and  the  pictures  painted  after 
his  death  by  those  who  called  themselves  his 
“ heirs  ” are  even  more  markedly  inferior  to 
the  real  works  of  Veronese  in  design  than  in  execu- 
tion. They  are  filled  with  figures  imitated  from  the 
types  of  the  master,  but  spotted  here  and  there,  with- 
out order,  until  the  canvas  is  full;  and  they  might 
be  cut  off  anywhere  and  sold  by  the  yard  with  no 
serious  harm  done.  Every  genuine  picture  of  Vero- 
nese is  an  organised  whole;  and  the  larger  the  can- 
vas, the  greater  the  number  of  figures  it  contains, 
the  more  formal  and  symmetrical,  as  a rule,  is  the 
arrangement.  At  the  risk  of  some  dryness,  there- 


78 


VERONESE 


fore,  and  of  calling  attention  to  what  was  meant  to 
be  felt  rather  than  seen,  it  becomes  necessary  to  ana- 
lyse his  methods. 

Like  all  true  decorators,  Veronese  habitually  com- 
posed in  breadth  rather  than  in  depth.  His  principal 
figures  are  arranged  nearly  on  one  plane  or  are  drawn 
as  if  seen  from  so  great  a distance  that  perspective 
differences  are  minimised,  so  that  all  are  nearly  of  the 
same  size.  There  will,  likely  enough,  be  subordinate 
figures  in  the  background,  but  these  also  will  be' 
arranged  on  a plane  parallel  with  the  first,  and  there 
will  be  no  connecting  links  between  the  two  sets  of 
figures  and  no  lines  leading  into  the  picture.  Gener- 
ally there  is  no  distance,  the  background  being  cut  off 
by  an  architectural  screen,  so  that  while  the  room 
decorated  is  enlarged  to  the  imagination,  it  is  enlarged 
to  a limited  and  measurable  degree,  and  the  sense  of 
space  is  as  carefully  circumscribed  as  it  is  suggested. 
Look,  for  instance,  at  the  way  the  figures  are  strung 
out  across  the  canvas  in  the  “Alexander  and  the 
Family  of  Darius,”  or  in  the  smaller  “Marriage  in 
Cana,”  and  at  the  absence,  in  the  latter,  of  any  differ- 
ence in  size  between  the  figures  on  the  two  sides  of  the 
table  and  the  sudden  and  marked  diminution  of  the 
distant  figures.  In  this  case  there  is  a third  plane,  still 
farther  away,  but  there  are  almost  no  transitions. 
This  principle  Veronese  observed,  to  some  extent,  even 
in  his  ceilings,  where  he  was  more  willing  to  break 
through  the  surface  of  his  picture,  and  he  never  ob- 


VERONESE 


79 


serves  it  more  entirely  in  spirit  than  in  the  great 
‘‘  Marriage  in  Cana,”  where  the  exigencies  of  his  task 
seem  to  cause  him  to  disregard  it.  Here  the  canvas 
was  too  vast,  especially  in  its  vertical  dimension,  to 
admit  of  his  favourite  arrangement.  It  was  necessary 
to  place  the  horizon  higher  than  usual,  and  to  throw 
the  principal  figures  farther  back  in  order  to  get 
height.  This  the  artist  has  done,  but  in  doing  so  he  has 
deliberately  falsified  his  perspective,  making  use  of  a 
number  of  different  vanishing-points  in  order  to  avoid 
too  great  a convergence  of  lines  and  to  diminish  the 
difference  in  size  between  the  nearer  and  farther  figures ; 
while  he  has  made  a sudden  diminution  of  scale  in  the 
figures  on  the  balcony,  which  is  maintained,  nearly 
unaltered,  in  those  on  the  housetops  beyond. 

Still,  there  was  some  danger  that  the  figure  of  the 
Christ  might  be  lost  in  the  crowd  of  subordinate 
figures.  Veronese  has,  therefore,  placed  his  head 
exactly  at  the  theoretical  point  of  sight,  and,  while  he 
has  made  most  of  his  perspective  lines  vanish  where  he 
pleased,  he  has  seen  to  it  that  the  two  most  con- 
spicuous of  them,  those  of  the  cornices  on  either  side, 
should  point  true.  More  important,  however,  are  the 
lines  traced  by  the  positions  and  attitudes  of  the 
figures  themselves.  See  how  the  background  figures 
are  arranged  in  a long,  drooping  curve,  as  of  a neck- 
lace, of  which  the  head  of  Christ  should  be  the  pen- 
dant ; note  how  they  are  played  about  into  groups  of 
two  and  three,  how  their  arms  are  so  disposed  as  to 


80 


VERONESE 


echo  and  re-echo  this  falling  curve;  above  all,  how 
the  figures  at  either  extremity  begin  another,  and 
lower,  curve,  which  points  directly  to  the  head  of 
Christ ; you  will  find  in  this  part  of  the  picture  alone, 
and  on  a much  larger  scale,  all  the  science  of  the 
composition  of  Leonardo’s  “Last  Supper.”  But  the 
lower  part  of  the  picture  is  still  more  wonderful.  The 
falling  curve  is  still  echoed,  even  to  the  corners,  and 
many  of  these  subordinate  lines  are,  as  it  were,  sus- 
pended from  the  centre;  but  the  principal  lines  are  a 
series  crossing  these — a series  of  convex  curves  made 
up  of  this  man’s  head  and  that  man’s  back  or  arm, 
and  answering  to  each  other  on  either  side  of  the  can- 
vas with  almost  rigid  symmetry,  although  the  objects 
which  trace  them  are  constantly  varied.  Every  small- 
est object  in  the  great  picture  either  forms  a part  of 
this  system  of  curves,  or  sympathises  with  it,  or  subtly 
contrasts  it,  and  you  could  not  change  so  much  as  a 
feather  in  a cap  or  the  collar  on  a dog  without  harm 
to  the  whole ; and,  wherever  your  eye  is  first  attracted, 
one  of  these  lines  leads  it  imperceptibly  but  surely  to 
that  small  head  in  the  centre,  and  fixes  it  there.  That 
head  dominates  some  six  hundred  square  feet  of  can- 
vas, and,  after  a time,  you  can  see  nothing  else. 

No  other  of  Veronese’s  pictures  affords  so  astonish- 
ing an  example  of  his  power  of  design  as  this,  but 
almost  any  of  them  might  be  analysed  in  a similar  way. 
The  garlanded  curves  occur  again  and  again,  notably 
in  the  “St.  George,”  “The  Cuccina  Family”  and 


VERONESE 


81 


the  smaller  “ Marriage  in  Cana.”  In  this  last  the 
compositional  centre  is  shifted  to  one  side,  and  the 
right-hand  end  of  the  canvas  is  a sort  of  foil  to  the 
symmetrical  group  which  fills  two-thirds  of  it.  The 
extreme  of  picturesque  fantasy  and  informality  is 
reached  in  the  “Finding  of  Moses  ” — a painting  of  no 
great  size  and  in  a lighter  vein;  but  even  here  the 
irregularity  is  more  apparent  than  real,  and  the  same 
care  is  taken  to  insure  the  dominance  of  the  most  im- 
portant figure.  It  is  only  another  kind  of  science  that 
is  displayed — ^the  quantity  is  the  same. 

There  is  much  more  that  might  and  should  be  said 
of  the  art  of  Veronese,  but  we  have  now  cursorily 
examined  it  in  every  aspect,  and  have  found  him  armed 
at  all  points,  equipped  with  almost  every  quality  of 
art.  For  a thorough  and  adequate  knowledge  of 
every  part  of  his  profession  it  would  be  impossible  to 
name  his  equal,  and  if  respect  for  the  achievement  in 
one  or  another  direction  of  this  or  that  mighty  artist 
forbids  us  to  call  him  the  greatest  of  masters,  we  may 
yet,  with  assurance,  proclaim  him  the  completest  mas- 
ter of  the  art  of  painting  that  ever  lived. 


DURER 


DURER  is,  unquestionably,  one  of  the  dozen 
I great  artists  of  modem  times,  yet  of  all  the 
great  artists  that  ever  lived  he  is  perhaps 
the  least  specially  artistic  in  temper.  A man  who 
became,  not  merely  a painter,  but  one  of  the  greatest 
of  painters,  yet  of  whom  it  may  be  said  that  the 
painter  in  him  was  the  smallest  part  of  him,  is  cer- 
tainly worthy  of  careful  study  as  a curiosity  of 
human  nature,  if  for  nothing  else.  His  artistic  pro- 
ductions have  been  studied  again  and  again,  and  are 
likely  to  be  studied  while  the  world  lasts,  but  his 
writings  have  also  been  subjected  to  careful  examina- 
tion. Every  scrap  of  them  that  has  been  preserved 
to  us  seems  to  have  been  deciphered — letters  and 
journals  and  notes  written  upon  the  margins  of  draw- 
ings, as  well  as  his  professed  treatises  upon  art  and 
engineering — and  the  whole  collated  and  compared 
with  scrupulous  care  in  the  effort  to  throw  some  light 
upon  his  nature,  his  ideas,  and  his  methods  of  work. 

Albrecht  Diirer  was  bom  on  the  21st  day  of  May, 
1471,  and  died  on  the  6th  of  April,  1528.  His  life 
therefore  covered  the  flowering  time  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  and  he  outlived  Raphael  eight  years. 

82 


DURER 


8S 


Titian  and  Giorgione  he  may  have  known.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  know  that  he  met  Quentin  Matsys 
(who  was  about  eleven  years  his  senior)  at  Antwerp. 
With  Holbein  he  represents  about  all  there  is  of  the 
Renaissance  in  Germany,  but  Holbein  was  his  junior 
by  twenty-six  years.  The  mere  names  and  dates 
show  how  slowly  the  Renaissance  crept  northward, 
but  Diirer’s  work  shows  it  better  still.  M.  Edouard 
Fetis,  in  his  Catalogue  of  the  Royal  Museum  at 
Brussels,  fixes  the  line  of  demarcation  between  the 
primitive  schools  and  the  modern  more  than  a hundred 
years  later  in  the  north  than  in  Italy,  and  places  Hol- 
bein himself  among  the  primitives.  Whether  or  not 
he  belongs  to  this  category,  Durer  certainly  does; 
yet,  in  many  ways,  Diirer  was  the  Renaissance 
incarnate. 

His  writings  show  him  to  us  successively  from  sev- 
eral points  of  view.  First,  we  have  the  man  Diirer, 
the  burgher  of  Niirnberg,  steady,  hard-working, 
honest,  careful  of  his  pfennigs,  sharp  at  a bargain, 
rather  fretful  and  discontented  in  disposition,  and  a 
trifle  vain,  knowing  his  merit  and  not  averse  to 
speaking  of  it,  a pious  son,  but  a not  particularly 
loving  husband.  His  letters  to  Jacob  Heller  about  the 
famous  altar-piece  he  painted  for  him  are  almost 
comic  in  their  insistent  effort  to  screw  an  extra 
hundred  florins  from  his  unwilling  patron.  He 
returns  to  the  charge  again  and  again,  tells  him 
that  he  has  used  none  but  the  best  colours  he  could 


84. 


DURER 


gety”  and  has  “painted  upon  it  more  than  twenty- 
four  florins’  worth  of  them.”  In  another  letter  it 
becomes  “ twenty-five  florins’  worth  of  ultra-marine  ” 
alone.  He  will  never  undertake  such  a job  again  for 
double  the  money,  and  even  at  the  extra  price  he  will 
be  out  of  pocket  by  the  bargain.  Finally  (and  this 
is  often  repeated),  he  is  already  offered  more  for  the 
picture  than  he  asks,  which,  he  goes  on,  “ w^ould  have 
done  very  nicely  for  me  had  I not  preferred  to  please 
and  serve  you  by  sending  you  the  picture.  For  I 
value  the  keeping  of  your  friendship  at  more  than 
100  florins.  I would  also  rather  have  this  painting 
at  Frankfurt  than  anywhere  else  in  all  Germany.'* 
That  this  was  the  real  point  with  him,  is  shown  by 
his  saying  in  another  letter,  “ It  will  be  seen  by  many 
artists,  who  perhaps  will  let  you  know  whether  it  is 
masterly  or  bad.”  One  is  glad  to  know  that  he  got 
his  money. 

His  father  and  mother  he  speaks  of  always  with 
reverence  and  love,  but  he  scarce  ever  mentions  his 
wife,  except  to  record  occasionally,  “ I dined  once 
with  my  wife,”  in  that  strange  journal  of  his  famous 
journey  to  Antwerp,  in  which  he  mingles  accounts 
of  the  honours  showered  upon  him  with  items  of  “ 4 
pf.  for  bread,”  and  near  the  end  of  which  he  makes 
the  characteristic  statement : “ In  ail  my  doings, 

spendings,  sales,  and  other  dealings,  in  all  my  connec- 
tions with  high  and  low,  I have  suffered  loss  in  the 
Netherlands.” 


DURER 


85 


Next  we  have  Diirer  as  the  religious  reformer,  and 
here  there  are  some  curious  contrasts  to  be  observed, 
though  they  are  not  really  so  strange  as  they  seem. 
If  Diirer,  while  still  going  to  confession  and  praying 
to  the  “Mother  of  God,”  puts  Popes  and  Cardi- 
nals among  the  damned  in  his  illustrations  of  the 
Apocalypse,  he  does  no  more  than  did  many  mediaeval 
artists  whose  Catholicism  has  never  been  questioned. 
His  placing  there  also  the  Emperor  and  Empress 
shows  what  he  meant — that  the  wicked,  however  high 
placed  in  this  world,  will  have  due  punishment  meted 
out  to  them  in  the  world  to  come.  Mediaeval  art  and 
literature  are  full  of  ridicule  of  the  vices  and  abuses 
of  the  clergy  long  before  the  doctrines  of  Romanism 
were  questioned.  Later,  indeed,  Diirer  seems  to 
have  fallen  much  under  the  influence  of  Luther,  and 
to  have  been  deeply  stirred  by  religious  thought. 
There  are  passages  in  his  writings  which  may  fairly 
be  called  mystical,  and  others  that  seem  to  come  from 
a religious  zealot.  Such  is  his  famous  apostrophe 
to  Erasmus : “ Oh,  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam,  where 

wilt  thou  stop.f^  Behold  how  the  wicked  tyranny 
of  wordly  power,  the  might  of  darkness,  prevails. 
Hear,  thou  knight  of  Christ!  Ride  on  by  the  side 
of  the  Lord  Jesus.  Guard  the  truth.  Attain  the 
martyr’s  crown.”  Yet  he  was  no  gloomy  fanatic, 
but,  like  Luther  himself,  loved  Wein,  Weih,  und 
Gesang,  His  accounts  contain  frequent  mention  of 
money  lost  at  play,  and  he  freely  jests  with  his 


86 


DURER 


friends  about  their  mistresses.  In  fact,  in  his  rela- 
tions to  religion,  as  in  many  other  things,  Diirer 
fully  and  fairly  represented  the  Germany  of  his  day, 
somewhat  gross  and  materialistic  in  its  pleasures,  yet 
capable  of  serious  thought  and  of  deep  emotion; 
clinging  to  the  beliefs  and  outward  forms  of  its  old 
religion,  yet  determined  to  reform  abuses  and  to  rebel 
against  Papal  despotism.  He  was  no  longer  a 
Roman  Catholic,  but  he  was  hardly  a Protestant. 

If  in  his  daily  life  and  in  his  religion  Diirer  was 
the  representative  of  the  Germany  of  his  day,  in  his 
wide  curiosity,  his  thirst  for  new  knowledge,  the 
range  of  his  learning  and  experiment,  he  was  the 
representative  of  the  Renaissance  itself.  Nothing  in 
the  way  of  information  came  amiss  to  his  inquiring 
mind.  He  took  a trip  to  Zeeland,  apparently  to  see 
a stranded  whale.  He  has  left  a careful  drawing  of 
a walrus.  He  scrupulously  recorded  all  prodigies 
that  came  in  his  way  or  that  he  could  hear  of  through 
friends.  He  was  deeply  interested  in  geometry, 
architecture,  and  music,  was  an  inventor  in  fortifica- 
tion, thought  much  upon  perspective  without  mas- 
tering its  principles,  and  wrote  treatises  upon  the 
measurement  of  the  human  figure.  It  is  recorded 
that  “ Melanchthon  used  to  say  of  him  that,  though 
he  excelled  in  the  art  of  painting,  it  was  the  least  of 
his  accomplishments,”  and,  referring  to  a dispute 
between  Diirer  and  Pirkheimer,  he  confessed,  with  a 
certain  naivete,  “his  astonishment  at  the  ingenuity 


DURER 


87 


and  power  manifested  by  a painter  in  arguing  with 
a man  of  Pirkheimer’s  renown.” 

The  comparison  with  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  that 
great  contemporary  of  Diirer’s,  who,  more  than  any 
other  man,  represented  the  many-sidedness  of  the 
Renaissance,  is  here  forced  upon  one.  Of  Leonardo, 
also,  it  might  have  been  said  by  a contemporary,  that 
painting  “was  the  least  of  his  accomplishments,” 
though  no  contemporary  was  likely  to  express  sur- 
prise at  his  “ingenuity  and  power”  in  argument. 
Leonardo  also  was  musician,  architect,  engineer,  and 
author.  His  celebrated  letter  to  Sforza,  in  which 
painting  is  placed  last  among  the  things  he  could  do 
“ as  well  as  any  man,”  is  well  known.  Leonardo  also 
theorised  upon  the  proper  proportions  of  the  human 
figure,  and  one  of  his  studies  of  a nude  man  drawn 
within  a circle  and  a square  seems  to  have  been 
identical  in  idea  with  a couple  of  Diirer’s.  In  this 
instance  both  took  their  idea  from  Vitruvius.  The 
resemblances  between  the  two  men  were  thus  mani- 
fold, and  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  the  German 
may  have  come,  indirectly,  under  the  influence  of  the 
great  Italian  during  his  stay  in  Italy.  Between 
them,  however,  there  is  a diflPerence  so  wide  that  it 
alone  is  greater  than  the  many  resemblances.  Leon- 
ardo was  an  Italian,  with  the  Italian  love  for  beauty, 
while  Diirer  was  a German,  with  the  German  rever- 
ence for  fact. 

Diirer’s  theory  on  the  measurement  of  the  human 


88 


DURER 


body  was  peculiar,  and  merits  some  attention.  It 
was,  briefly,  that  as  every  individual  varies  from  the 
typical  man  in  a way  peculiar  to  himself,  these 
peculiar  variations  will,  in  an  infinite  series  of  meas- 
urements, counteract  and  nullify  each  other,  and 
the  type  will  be  disengaged.  His  ideal  man  was  a 
sort  of  composite  photograph  of  all  existing  men — 
the  “ average  man  ” in  the  literal  sense.  It  was  not 
man  “ as  he  ought  to  be,”  as  Raphael  said  he  painted 
him,  but  man  as  he  is,  individual  peculiarities 
excepted.  The  result  of  the  theory  is  curiously 
shown  in  his  measured  drawings  of  the  foot,  in  which 
elaborate  diagrams  are  given  for  ascertaining  the 
exact  inward  inclination  of  the  great  toe  caused  by 
the  modern  shoe!  He  was  himself  aware  that  his 
own  observations  were  insufiicient  in  number,  and 
proposed  his  canon  only  as  an  approximation  to  the 
final  one.  In  a draught  for  the  introduction  of  that 
comprehensive  work  (never  written)  in  which  he 
intended  to  “ Set  down  all  that  I have  learned  in 
practice,  which  is  likely  to  be  of  use  in  painting,”  he 
says : “ I do  not  highly  extol  the  proportions  I here 

set  down,  albeit  I do  not  believe  them  to  be  the  worst. 
Moreover,  I do  not  lay  them  down  as  beyond  improve- 
ment, but  that  thou  mayest  search  out  and  discover 
some  better  method  by  their  help.” 

But  this  temper  of  experiment  did  not  last.  He 
had  an  almost  superstitious  reverence  for  numbers 
and  measurements  as  in  themselves  holy  and  beauti- 


DURER 


89 


ful,  and  he  had  the  theorising  mind  which  must 
reduce  everything  to  some  system,  however  arbitrary. 
The  sketched  plan  for  his  great  work  is  like  an  old 
sermon  with  its  divisions  and  subdivisions.  It  was  to 
be  in  three  divisions ; each  division  was  to  be  in  three 
parts,  and  each  of  these  was  to  be  again  divided  into 
six  smaller  parts.  The  scheme  was  evidently  made 
out  with  little  regard  to  the  contents  and  for  the  sake 
of  its  own  symmetry,  and  it  would  have  strained  his 
ingenuity  to  fill  out  the  frame  he  had  made  for  him- 
self. As  an  instance  take  Division  III.,  Part  B; 
“ The  second  part  shows  how  such  a wonderful  artist 
should  charge  highly  for  his  art,  and  that  no  money 
is  too  much  for  it,  seeing  that  it  is  divine  and  true; 
in  six  ways”!  This  theorising  and  systematising 
spirit  lays  hold  upon  his  measurements,  and  we  soon 
find  ourselves  in  a nightmarish  maze  of  geometrical 
rules  for  modifying  all  the  proportions  in  the  same 
degree  by  “Words  of  Difference,”  so  as  to  produce 
thin  or  thick,  short  or  long  figures ; of  men  “ ten 
heads  high,”  and  similar  monstrosities.  Finally,  in 
a letter  to  Pirkheimer  about  the  preface  which  the 
latter  had  agreed  to  write  for  the  “Four  Books  of 
Human  Proportions,”  he  is  reduced  to  say:  “I 

neither  will  nor  can  give  any  better  reason  for  all 
the  proportions  set  down  in  the  whole  book  and  in  the 
sequel — ^why  I make  them  so  and  not  otherwise — save 
that  in  fact  I do  so  make  them.” 

Leonardo’s  strong  sense  of  beauty  saved  him  from 


90 


DURER 


the  disastrous  effects  of  such  vagaries.  Diirer’s 
sense  of  beauty  was  slight,  and  when  he  was  not 
dominated  by  his  model  he  fell  into  woful  error.  Of 
one  of  his  Madonna  figures,  Sir  Martin  Conway  has 
said : “ It  is  not  human.  It  is  a painted  theory ; a 

coloured  proposition.”  But  let  Diirer  the  theoriser 
speculate  as  he  might,  Diirer  the  painter  was  a realist 
with  a tenacious  grip  on  facts.  When  constructing 
an  “ideal”  Virgin,  he  failed.  Let  us  be  thankful 
that,  for  the  most  part,  his  imitative  instinct  got 
the  better  of  his  idealising  mind,  and  that  his  life 
was  spent  in  drawing  the  portraits  of  the  very  real 
men  and  women  of  his  time. 

I have  said  “Diirer  the  painter,”  but  a painter, 
in  the  stricter  sense,  he  never  was.  To  paint  is  to 
represent  upon  a flat  surface  the  visual  aspects  of 
things:  Diirer’s  idea  of  painting  was  the  delineation 
upon  such  a surface  of  all  the  ascertainable  facts 
about  things.  A picture  was  a sort  of  geometrical 
projection  of  nature.  To  him  effect  was  unknown, 
and  mystery  would  have  seemed  falsification,  light 
and  shade  was  only  a means  of  securing  roundness, 
and  colour  was  only  known  as  local  colour — an  added 
fact  about  the  object  painted.  This  man,  who  was 
working  in  Venice  while  Giorgione  was  painting  the 
Fondaco  de’  Tedeschi,  was  as  a painter  more  primi- 
tive than  Jan  Van  Eyck,  and  two- thirds  of  the  art 
of  painting  was  undreamed  of  by  him.  By  early 
training  he  was  a goldsmith,  by  choice  an  engraver, 


DURER 


91 


and  the  qualities  on  which  he  prided  himself  were 
exceeding  minuteness  in  detail  and  an  engraver-like 
sureness  of  hand.  He  is  explicit  about  finish. 
“ These  things,”  he  says,  “ should  be  wrought  in  the 
work  to  the  clearest  and  carefullest  finish,  and  even 
the  tiniest  wrinkles  and  details  should  not  be  omitted 
in  so  far  as  it  is  possible.”  He  adds,  to  be  sure, 
“ though  it  is  useless  to  overdo  and  overload  a thing  ” ; 
but  it  is  said  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  finish 
a picture  to  his  own  satisfaction.  With  regard  to 
his  sureness  of  hand,  there  is  an  anecdote  in  Cam- 
ararius’s  preface  to  his  Latin  translation  of  the 
“ Books  of  Human  Proportions  ” which  is  worth 
quoting  entire  for  the  light  it  throws  upon  Diirer 
and  his  methods : 

“I  cannot  forbear  to  tell,  in  this  place,  the  story 
of  what  happened  between  him  and  Giovanni  Bellini. 
Bellini  had  the  highest  reputation  as  a painter  at 
Venice,  and,  indeed,  throughout  all  Italy.  When 
Albrecht  was  there,  he  easily  became  intimate  with 
him,  and  both  artists  naturally  began  to  show  one 
another  specimens  of  their  skill.  Albrecht  frankly 
admired  and  made  much  of  all  Bellini’s  works.  Bel- 
lini also  candidly  expressed  his  admiration  of  various 
features  of  Albrecht’s  skill,  and  particularly  the 
fineness  and  delicacy  with  which  he  drew  hairs. 
It  chanced  one  day  that  they  were  talking  about  art, 
and  when  their  conversation  was  done,  Bellini  said; 
‘Will  you  be  so  kind,  Albrecht,  as  to  gratify  a friend 


DURER 


in  a small  matter? ’ ‘You  shall  soon  see,’  says 
Albrecht,  ‘if  you  will  ask  of  me  anything  I can  do 
for  you.’  Then  says  Bellini:  ‘I  want  you  to  make 

me  a present  of  one  of  the  brushes  with  which  you 
draw  hairs.’  Diirer  at  once  produced  several,  just 
like  other  brushes,  and,  in  fact,  of  the  kind  Bellini 
himself  used,  and  told  him  to  choose  those  he  liked 
best,  or  take  them  all  if  he  would.  But  Bellini,  think- 
ing he  was  misunderstood,  said : “ No,  I don’t  mean 

these,  but  the  ones  with  which  you  draw  several  hairs 
with  one  stroke;  they  must  be  rather  spread  out  and 
more  divided,  otherwise,  in  a long  sweep,  such  regu- 
larity of  curvature  and  distance  could  not  be 
preserved.’  ‘ I use  no  other  than  these,’  says  Al- 
brecht, ‘ and  to  prove  it,  you  may  watch  me.’  Then, 
taking  up  one  of  the  same  brushes,  he  drew  some  very 
long  wavy  tresses,  such  as  women  generally  wear, 
in  the  most  regular  order  and  symmetry.  Bellini 
looked  on  wondering,  and  afterwards  confessed  to 
many  that  no  human  being  could  have  convinced  him 
by  report  of  the  truth  which  he  had  seen  with  his 
own  eyes.” 

Diirer  was  by  nature  and  by  training  an  engraver, 
it  was  by  engraving  that  he  expressed  himself  most 
freely  and  fully,  and  it  is  on  his  engraved  work 
that  his  reputation  does  and  must  mainly  rest.  But 
even  in  his  chosen  art  the  art  itself  was  secondary  to 
him.  Art  is  good  because  it  “ is  employed  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Church,”  because  it  “ preserveth  the  like- 


DURER 


: "^melencolia'' 


DURER 


93 


ness  of  men  after  their  death,”  because,  “by  aid  of 
delineations,  the  measurements  of  the  earth,  the 
waters,  and  the  stars  are  better  to  be  understood ; and 
many  things  likewise  become  known  unto  men  by 
them.”  Art  is  with  him  an  aid  to  devotion,  a vehicle 
of  thought,  a record  of  fact;  but  art  for  art’s  sake 
found  no  favour  in  his  eyes.  Pure  beauty  of  line 
moved  him  little  more  than  beauty  of  light  and  shade 
or  colour,  but  accuracy  and  expressiveness  were 
everything  to  him.  The  accessories  in  his  plates 
might  serve  to-day  as  working  drawings  for  a cabi- 
net-maker, so  carefully  is  the  construction  made 
out,  and  in  his  landscapes  every  tree  in  twenty  miles 
of  country  is  plainly  drawn.  And  as  art  was  to  him 
a vehicle  of  thought  or  a record  of  fact,  so  he  could 
never  pack  enough  thought  or  enough  fact  into  a 
plate.  Breadth,  simplicity,  concentration,  the  elimi- 
nating of  many  small  facts  to  present  some  great 
fact  more  clearly — the  suppression  of  all  second- 
ary ideas  that  the  dominant  idea  may  be  more 
directly  expressed — ^these  things  were  quite  foreign 
to  his  temper.  Consider  his  two  great  plates,  the 
“Melencolia”  and  the  “Knight  and  Death,”  and 
remark  how  every  corner,  every  quarter-inch  of 
space,  is  crammed  with  meanings.  He  had  so  much  to 
say,  apparently,  that  he  could  not  afford  to  waste 
any  room.  No  quiet  masses,  as  a relief  to  the  eye, 
for  him;  no  space  is  so  small  that  some  object  may 
not  be  crowded  into  it  which  v/ill  add  to  the  thought 


94 


DURER 


or  at  least  to  the  realisation  of  facts.  And  all  these 
objects  must  be  most  clearly  drawn  and  with  the 
utmost  minuteness.  All  the  intricate  detail  of  a tool 
or  a mathematical  instrument  must  be  so  marked  that 
there  can  be  no  doubt  about  its  use  and  structure. 
Nay,  what  is  a pebbly  bank  but  a collection  of 
individual  pebbles,  each  of  which  has  its  form  as 
sacred  as  that  of  a mountain?  An  engraving,  so 
treated,  becomes  a kind  of  puzzle  that  one  may  pore 
over  for  hours,  still  finding  something  new  to  consider, 
and  the  drawing  of  a wrinkled  face  is  as  intricate  as 
the  map  of  a continent. 

All  this  is  very  far  from  the  purely  artistic  temper. 
It  is  rather  the  endless  curiosity  of  the  man  of  science 
or  the  deep  pondering  of  the  man  of  thought.  What 
is  it,  then,  that  has  placed  among  the  immortals  of 
art  this  man  who  was  so  little  of  an  artist,  so  much  of 
everything  else?  Is  it  not,  perhaps,  his  profound  sym- 
pathy with  the  spirit  of  his  age?  With  Diirer  it  is  not 
so  much  his  art  which  has  preserved  its  contents  as  the 
contents  which  still  interest  us  in  his  art.  It  is  not  so 
much  Diirer’s  language  that  we  care  for  (a  language 
which  is  rather  antiquated  now),  as  it  is  his  thought; 
and  that  thought  interests  because  Diirer  was,  in 
his  own  person,  his  age  and  country  embodied.  His 
many-sided  mind  embraced  every  interest  of  his  many- 
sided  epoch,  and  he  was,  more  than  any  of  his  con- 
temporaries, the  representative  man.  We  have  said 
that  Diirer  and  Holbein  were  together  almost  all  there 


DURER 


95 


was  of  the  German  Renaissance  in  art,  but  it  might 
almost  be  said  that  Diirer  was  the  German  Renais- 
sance. The  art  of  Holbein  is  rather  Dutch  than 
German  in  its  essential  quality,  and  of  many  of  the 
problems  of  his  time  he  seems  to  have  been  serenely 
innocent.  He  was  a wonderful  portrait-painting 
animal,  and  went  on  painting  superb  portraits  to  the 
end,  little  worried  by  anything  else;  and,  though  the 
better  painter,  he  was  in  some  ways  the  smaller  man. 
Diirer  laid  hold  upon  his  age  at  all  points,  and  there- 
fore, for  us,  the  Germany  of  the  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation,  the  Germany  of  Luther,  Melanchthon, 
and  Holbein,  is,  above  all,  the  Germany  of  Albrecht 
Diirer. 


RUBENS 


The  difference  in  the  amount  of  recorded  fact 
concerning  the  two  greatest  artists  of  the 
seventeenth  century  (or,  rather,  two  of  the 
three  greatest — for  Velasquez  should  be  admitted  to 
the  trio)  is  characteristic  of  the  profound  contrast 
between  the  men  themselves.  They  were  not  in  the 
strictest  sense  contemporaries,  Rubens  being  nearly 
thirty  years  older  than  Rembrandt ; but  much  of  their 
best  work  was  produced  in  the  same  years.  Peter 
Paul  Rubens,  Knight,  Secretary  to  His  Majesty’s 
Privy  Council,  and  Gentleman  of  the  Household  of 
Her  Serene  Highness  the  Princess  Isabella,  the  most 
famous  artist  of  the  age  and  one  of  the  finest  gentle- 
men of  Europe,  died  in  1640,  leaving  a fortune  to 
his  family,  who  spent  a thousand  florins  on  his 
funeral.  At  that  time  Rembrandt  was  still  enjoy- 
ing something  of  that  brief  local  popularity  which 
seems  never  to  have  reached  as  far  as  Antwerp;  but, 
twenty-nine  years  later,  he  died  in  poverty  and 
obscurity,  a broken-down  old  bankrupt,  and  was 
buried  at  a cost  of  thirteen  florins.  Owing  to  the 
indiscretions  of  his  father,  Rubens  was  bom  in  a 
period  of  eclipse  for  his  family,  and  the  place  of  his 
birth  was  long  doubtful.  These  doubts  have  now 

96 


RUBENS 


97 


been  dispelled,  and  the  rest  of  his  life  is  as  open  as 
the  sunlight.  He  was  an  accomplished  scholar,  a 
man  of  great  personal  charm,  the  friend  and  com- 
panion of  princes.  He  rode  the  finest  horses,  wore 
the  most  magnificent  clothes,  and  married  the  most 
beautiful  women.  About  the  solitary  Rembrandt 
grew  up  a fantastic  legend  of  mingled  debauchery 
and  avarice,  and  it  is  not  yet  known  whether  the  serv- 
ing-wench who  was  the  mother  of  his  surviving 
children  ever  became  his  wife.  Rubens  had  as  many 
pupils  as  Raphael,  and  relied  as  much  on  their  collab- 
oration; Rembrandt  seems  to  have  been  hardly  more 
able  than  Michelangelo  to  utilise  the  work  of  others. 

In  all  these  points  we  seem  to  see  the  eternal  con- 
trast between  the  two  great  types  of  artist,  the 
Classic  and  the  Romantic.  The  Romantic  artist  is 
intensely  personal,  intensely  poetic,  occupied  solely 
with  self-expression.  The  virtue  of  his  work  is  some- 
thing that  he  alone  can  give  it,  and  he  has  no  use  for 
the  hand  of  another.  The  Classic  artist  is  engaged 
in  the  clear  and  perfect  expression  of  the  ideals  of 
all  the  world.  His  work  is  not  so  much  different 
from  others  as  it  is  better,  and  he  generally  cares  so 
little  for  the  personal  note  that  he  is  quite  willing 
that  the  inferior  execution  of  a pupil  should  have  its 
place  in  the  work,  if  only  the  work  be  accomplished. 
The  great  Romantic  artist  is  generally  misunder- 
stood by  his  contemporaries,  as  was  even  Michel- 
angelo, and  is  rarely  materially  successful.  The 


98 


RUBENS 


great  Classic  artist  is  the  delight  of  his  time  and  is 
covered  with  honours  and  rewards,  though  his  fame 
sometimes  suffers  an  eclipse  in  the  next  age.  Rem- 
brandt was  one  of  the  greatest  Romantic  painters  of 
all  time;  Rubens  was  the  great  Classic  artist  of  his 
epoch.  Between  them  stands  Velasquez,  the  Natural- 
ist, neither  Romantic  and  poetic  nor  Classical  and 
decorative,  a pure  painter,  “ le  'peintre  le  plus  peintre 
qui  fut  jamais,’^ 

To-day  we  find  Rubens  often  coarse  and  vulgar, 
and  we  are  apt  to  think  of  him  as  a ruddy  giant,  and 
of  his  art  as  a magnificent  display  of  animal  strength. 
It  seems  to  us  much  more  Flemish  than  universal, 
more  realistic  than  ideal.  To  call  this  beau  sahreur  of 
the  brush,  Delacroix’s  hero  and  Ingres’s  devil,  a Class- 
icist, may  seem  to  savour  of  paradox,  yet  a Classicist 
he  essentially  was : a Classicist  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury and  translated  into  Flemish,  yet  one  who  embodied 
the  ideals  of  his  time  almost  as  perfectly  as  Raphael 
did  those  of  the  high  Renaissance  in  Italy.  The 
faults  of  Rubens’s  work  are  much  less  individual — 
much  less  national,  even — than  we  are  apt  to  think. 
He  was  admired  even  in  Italy,  and  if  he  was  the  fav- 
ourite artist  of  the  King  of  Spain  and  of  the  Italian 
Queen  Regent  of  France,  it  was  because  his  art  pleased 
them  as  it  pleased  his  own  countrymen.  He  was,  like 
Raphael,  a humanist,  and,  like  Raphael,  an  eclectic ^ 
The  allegory,  the  pomposity,  the  exaggeration,  and 
the  bad  taste  of  his  pictures  mark  equally  the  litera- 


RUBENS 


99 


ture,  the  architecture,  and  the  sculpture  of  his  contem- 
poraries. It  was  the  time  of  elaborate  conceits  and 
long-winded  Latin,  of  the  Jesuit  churches,  and  of  the 
Cavaliere  Bernini.  Rubens  was  born  one  hundred 
years  after  the  date  usually  assigned  to  the  birth  of 
Titian,  and  one  year  after  Titian’s  death.  The  Vene- 
tians had  remade  the  art  of  painting  and  the  school 
of  line  was  dead.  His  Flemish  nature  might  have 
made  a colourist  of  him  in  any  case;  though  it  did 
not  save  some  of  the  Italianates,  his  predecessors ; but 
an  art  which  was  to  satisfy  the  ideals  of  Europe  in 
the  seventeenth  century  had  to  be  an  art  of  colour. 
Rubens’s  worship  of  flesh  is  little  greater  than  Titian’s 
and  his  female  types,  though  less  severely  drawn, 
are  not  more  gross  than  many  of  the  latter’s.  An 
artist  who  greatly  influenced  Rubens  during  his  stay 
in  Italy  was  Federigo  Barocci,  whose  use  of  exag- 
gerated curves  in  drawing  was  nearly  as  great  as 
Rubens’s  own.  The  Flemish  woman  has  been  unduly 
blamed.  Rubens’s  method  of  drawing  was  deliberately 
adopted,  and,  while  it  was  partly  influenced  in  its 
flourishing  and  writing-masterly  style  by  his  techni- 
cal handling  of  the  brush  and  his  desire  for  rapid 
execution,  yet  a thousand  drawings  show  that  it  was 
carefully  prepared  for.  His  copies  after  Michelan- 
gelo show  instructively  the  difference  between  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  century  ideals,  while  it  is  pre- 
cisely in  his  portraits,  where  he  was  bound  most  closely 
to  fact,  that  his  peculiar  drawing  is  least  noticeable. 


100 


RUBENS 


He  could  draw  like  any  one  else  when  he  was  not 
trying  to  be  grand  and  effective. 

Of  his  prodigious  ability  and  fecundity  there  is  of 
course  no  doubt.  He  carried  on  a vast  manufactory 
for  the  production  of  religious  and  decorative  pic- 
tures, with  the  aid  of  an  army  of  assistants  and 
collaborators ; and  the  amount  of  work  produced  and 
its  general  excellence  are  amazing.  If  he  had  done 
nothing  but  design  the  canvases  that  bear  his  name, 
and  never  painted  a stroke  of  them,  their  number 
would  still  be  almost  incredible;  but  he  is  known  to 
have  worked  more  or  less  on  almost  all  of  them,  and 
to  have  painted  many  (and  some  of  the  largest) 
entirely  with  his  own  hand  and  in  an  astonishingly 
short  time.  Such  rapidity  of  production  was  possi- 
ble only  by  virtue  of  the  utmost  systematisation. 
Each  of  his  assistants  was  allotted  a special  task  for 
which  he  was  specially  trained,  and  in  the  master’s 
own  work  there  was  no  reliance  on  mood  and  no  place 
for  accident.  Everything  was  arranged  for  and  cal- 
culated in  advance,  and  every  day’s  tranquil  and 
regulated  labour  brought  the  picture  just  so  much 
nearer  its  predestined  completion.  If  anything  was 
bad,  it  was  easier  to  paint  a new  picture  than  to 
change  the  old  one.  The  very  handling,  with  all  its 
ease,  certainty,  and  celerity,  was  always  methodical 
and  never  hurried.  Rubens  was  systematic  in  all 
things,  and  his  life  was  ordered  like  his  pictures,  and 
his  pictures  like  his  life.  In  such  works  as  the 


RUBENS 


101 


Medici  series  in  the  Louvre  there  is  little  personal 
feeling  and  little  poetry,  but  the  ideal  of  the  time  is 
embodied  in  a robust  and  rhetorical  prose.  If  we 
no  longer  admire  them  greatly,  it  is  because  our 
ideals  have  changed. 

To  have  been  the  representative  artist  of  an  epoch 
is  to  leave  a great  name ; but  if  Rubens  had  produced 
nothing  but  such  works  as  we  have  been  discussing, 
one  could  understand  the  sneer  that  Mr.  Whistler  is 
said  to  have  uttered,  “Whether  or  not  Rubens  was 
a great  painter,  he  was  certainly  an  industrious  per- 
son.” But  Rubens  was  more  than  the  incarnation 
of  the  seventeenth  century  in  art — ^he  was  the  pre- 
cursor of  the  eighteenth,  and  even  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Though  a precocious  artist,  he  yet  ripened 
slowly,  and  his  best  and  most  personal  work  was  done 
late  in  life.  After  his  second  marriage  in  1630,  his 
travels  over,  rich,  famous,  and  very  much  in  love,  he 
painted  more  often  for  himself  alone.  A series  of 
canvases  of  moderate  size,  painted  throughout  by  his 
own  hand  and  for  his  own  personal  satisfaction,  are 
scattered  through  the  collections  of  Europe.  Most 
of  them  are  portraits  of  Helena  Fourment,  who,  six- 
teen when  he  married  her  and  only  twenty-six  when 
he  died,  lives  for  ever  in  her  comely  youth  in  these 
pictures.  She  is  shown  us  in  her  habit  as  she  lived, 
or  masquerading  in  the  characters  of  sundry  saints 
and  mythological  persons,  and  she  is  shown  us  in  next 
to  no  clothes  at  all,  either  coming  from  the  bath  in 


102 


RUBENS 


a fur  pelisse,  or  posing  as  Andromeda  or  Susannah. 
Here,  at  last,  we  find  personal  feeling,  and  we  find 
painting  the  most  masterly,  colour  the  most  delicious, 
character,  beauty,  and  charm.  In  the  nudes  there 
are  still  mannerisms  and  faults  of  drawing,  but  there 
is  a perfection  of  fiesh  painting  that  passes  even 
Titian,  while  the  draped  portraits  are  as  perfect 
as  anything  ever  painted.  Through  Van  Dyck, 
Rubens  profoundly  influenced  the  English  portrait 
school  of  the  eighteenth  century ; in  such  pictures  of 
this  later  period  as  “The  Garden  of  Love”  we 
see  Watteau  foreshadowed.  The  subject  is  a very 
Watteau;  and  while  there  is  more  robustness,  more 
solidity,  a less  ethereal  sentiment,  there  is  as  much 
charm  as  with  Watteau  himself.  Watteau  not  only 
founded  his  technique  on  that  of  Rubens,  but  dis- 
covered in  such  pictures  as  this  his  type  of  subject 
and  treatment.  He  refined  upon  it  and  transported 
it  from  earth  to  ballet-land,  but  he  lost  in  vitality  as 
much  as  he  gained  in  grace,  and  the  “ Embarkation 
for  Cythera”  yields  no  greater  sum  of  delight  than 
“ The  Garden  of  Love.” 

In  his  last  years  Rubens  began  to  live  a part  of  the 
time  in  the  country,  and  landscape  began  first  to 
occupy  him  seriously.  The  backgrounds  of  his 
earlier  works,  where  landscape  is  introduced,  were 
generally  painted  by  others,  but  now  he  began  to 
study  nature  for  himself  and  to  devote  his  prodigious 
skill  and  the  knowledge  of  his  art  acquired  in  a life- 


RUBENS : THE  GARDEN  OF  LOVE 


RUBENS 


103 


time  of  production  to  the  rendering  of  natural  effects. 
The  result  is  a series  of  pictures  of  surprising  moder- 
nity and  truth — far  in  advance  of  anything  produced 
by  the  professional  landscape  painters  of  his  time. 
They  had  a marked  influence  on  the  development  of 
landscape  art,  and  M.  Emile  Michel  is  quite  within 
bounds  when  he  says  that  “the  best  landscapes  of 
Gainsborough,  and  even  of  Constable,  owe  as  much  to 
Rubens  as  to  Nature.” 


FRANS  HALS 


IF  we  limit  the  meaning  of  the  word  strictly 
enough,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Frans  Hals  of 
Haarlem  was  one  of  the  greatest  painters  that  ever 
lived.  For  sheer  accuracy  of  vision  and  brilliancy  of 
execution  he  has  had  no  superior,  and  perhaps  no  equal 
but  Velasquez;  yet  his  fame  is  singularly  modern. 
He  seems  to  have  had  a pretty  high  local  reputation 
at  one  period  of  his  career,  but  he  died  a pauper  and 
was  rapidly  forgotten.  In  1786  one  of  his  pictures 
sold  for  five  shillings,  and,  as  late  as  1852,  the  life- 
size,  full  length  portrait  of  himself  and  his  wife,  now 
in  the  Rijks  Museum  at  Amsterdam,  fetched  no  more 
than  £50.  Thirteen  years  afterward,  “ The  Laugh- 
ing Cavalier”  was  sold  for  £2,040,  and  in  1902  a 
“ Portrait  of  a Gentleman  ” reached  the  sum  of  £3,780. 
What  one  of  the  great  Doelen  pictures,  which  in  the 
eighteenth  century  were  rolled  up  and  stored  in  garret 
and  cellar,  would  be  worth  to-day,  if  it  came  upon  the 
market,  it  is  difficult  to  guess.  Of  course  it  was  the 
painters  who  rediscovered  Hals.  Reynolds  seems  to 
have  owned  one  of  his  portraits,  and  Northcote, 
Reynolds’s  pupil,  speaks  of  it  in  words  that  might  have 
been  written  yesterday.  About  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  Hals  became  a living  influence  among 

104 


FRANS  HALS 


105 


the  painters,  and  upon  his  art  and  that  of  Velasquez 
the  schools  of  Manet  and  Whistler  with  their  divers 
issues  were  largely  based.  Then  came  Fromentin’s 
“Maitres  d’ Autrefois,”  and  another  painter,  in  some 
pages  of  brilliant  writing,  revealed  to  the  world  what 
his  fellows  already  knew.  The  long  eclipse  of  a repu- 
tation was  over,  and  the  name  of  Frans  Hals  shone 
forth  with  a glory  which  is  not  likely  again  to  be 
dimmed.  To-day  it  is  more  necessary  to  distinguish 
than  to  praise;  more  important  to  show  what  the 
painter  of  Haarlem  was  not,  than  to  demonstrate  what 
he  was;  more  difficult  to  guard  against  the  possible 
evils  of  an  overwhelming  influence  than  to  recognise 
the  good  it  has  accomplished. 

Unfortunately  for  us,  during  the  long  neglect  of 
Hals  and  his  works,  most  of  the  facts  of  his  life  and 
a great  part  of  his  production  were  allowed  to  dis- 
appear. There  are  great  gaps  in  the  chronology  of 
his  pictures,  some  of  which  have  been  partially  filled 
of  late  years,  but  which  still  remain  puzzling  in  the 
extreme.  His  astonishing  technical  facility  shows  that 
his  work  was  produced  with  great  rapidity,  while  this 
same  facility  could  have  been  maintained  only  by  con- 
stant practice.  There  should  be  scores  of  canvases, 
big  and  little,  for  every  year  of  his  working  life,  yet 
there  is  more  than  one  period  of  five  or  six  years  to 
which  no  known  work  can  with  probability  be  assigned. 
Above  all,  there  is  nothing  known  to  exist  that  can 
with  propriety  be  called  an  early  work.  He  is  now 


106 


FRANS  HALS 


supposed,  on  slender  enough  evidence,  to  have  been 
born  in  1580,  though  the  date  long  accepted,  on  no 
discoverable  evidence  at  all,  is  1584.  He  was  there- 
fore either  twenty-nine  or  thirty-three  years  old  when 
his  earliest  known  picture  was  painted,  in  1613,  and 
three  years  older  when  the  next  extant  work  was  pro- 
duced, the  first  of  the  great  series  of  Doelen  pictures 
at  Haarlem.  That  he  should  have  been  given  such  a 
commission  at  all  shows  that  he  was  already  a master 
of  considerable  local  reputation;  the  picture  itself 
shows  even  more  clearly  that  mastery  had  been  at- 
tained. He  is  to  do  better  work,  but  technical  difficul- 
ties have  already  ceased  to  exist  for  him,  and  he  can 
draw  and  paint  anything  he  chooses.  How  did  he 
learn Who  was  his  first  master.?  What  sort  of 
partial  successes  and  full  successes  put  him  in  a posi- 
tion to  be  chosen  for  important  work.?  We  can  only 
guess.  Mr.  Gerard  B.  Davies’s  conjecture  that,  dur- 
ing his  young  days  in  Antwerp,  where  he  was  born, 
Hals  is  likely  to  have  studied  with  Rubens’s  master. 
Van  Noort,  seems  plausible  enough;  but  we  know  so 
little  of  Van  Noort  that,  even  if  accepted,  the  con- 
jecture does  not  greatly  help  us.  It  is  put  forth  ten- 
tatively, and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  it  will  not,  with  the 
curious  facility  of  such  conjectures,  get  itself  taken 
for  fact  by  the  next  writer  on  the  subject.  Whoever 
was  his  first  teacher,  Hals  must  have  done  a deal  of 
work  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  thirty,  and  it  is 
a pity  that  some  of  it  has  not  survived  for  the  edifica- 


FRANS  HALS 


107 


tion  of  the  student  of  to-day,  who  is  inclined  to  begin 
where  the  master  left  off.  We  have  the  early  paint- 
ings of  Velasquez,  and  know  through  what  hard,  pre- 
cise, “ tight  ” work  he  trained  the  eye  and  hand  that 
are  later  so  surprising  in  their  sureness  and  facility. 
Mastery  has  never  been  otherwise  attained,  and  it  is 
a safe  prediction  that  if  any  of  the  work  of  Hals  dur- 
ing this  first  decade  shall  be  recovered  and  identified, 
it  will  be  found  admirable,  no  doubt,  but  otherwise 
admirable  than  the  things  we  know. 

The  work  that  Frans  Hals  did  between  his  thirty- 
fifth  and  fifty-fifth  years — the  period  of  full  maturity 
— is  pretty  well  known  to  us.  A good  deal  of  it  must, 
indeed,  have  disappeared,  but  what  is  left  is  so  all  of 
a piece — ^the  development  is  so  normal  and  regular  and 
the  visible  change  so  slight — that  it  is  not  probable 
that  the  lost  works  would,  if  recoverable,  materially 
alter  our  conception  of  the  painter.  Such  as  he  was 
at  the  beginning  of  this  period,  he  was  at  the  end  of  it. 
There  is  to  be  noted  only  a gradual  increase  of  power, 
a slight  broadening  of  vision,  a growing  looseness  and 
lightness  of  touch.  One  of  the  notable  things  about 
this  output  is  its  limitation  of  subject.  Mr.  Davies 
gives  a curious  list  of  the  things  Hals  did  not  paint ; 
what  it  comes  to  is  just  this : he  painted  nothing  but 

portraits.  He  only  occasionally  introduced  a land- 
scape background,  and  then  in  a thoroughly  conven- 
tional and  perfunctory  manner.  He  never  painted 
a horse  and  hardly  ever  a dog.  He  painted  no  “ sub- 


108 


FRANS  HALS 


ject  pictures.”  We  can  think  of  no  other  painter  in 
the  whole  history  of  art  whose  effort  was  so  strictly 
limited  in  its  direction,  and  this  narrowness  grew  upon 
him  and  is  even  more  marked  after  1640  than  before 
that  date.  In  his  later  years  his  figures  rarely  have 
any  visible  surroundings  of  any  sort.  In  artistic 
qualities,  also,  he  was  as  limited  as  in  range  of  subject. 
He  had  only  a rudimentary  sense  of  composition ; light 
and  shade  is,  for  the  most  part,  interesting  to  him 
only  as  a means  of  drawing.  His  colour  is  sometimes 
pleasing  and  surprisingly  well  harmonised,  consider- 
ing the  parti-coloured  costumes  he  painted  and  the 
directness  of  his  method,  but  he  was  hardly  a colourist. 
His  growing  tendency  to  the  use  of  black  shadows  in 
flesh  would,  alone,  show  an  indifference  to  colour.  He 
was  a painter  of  likenesses — a portraitist  pure  and 
simple. 

But  if  Hals  was  only  a portrait  painter,  was  he  not 
one  of  the  greatest  of  portrait  painters.^  Yes  and  no. 
Northcote,  in  the  passage  already  referred  to,  says: 
For  truth  of  character  . . . he  was  the  greatest 

painter  that  ever  existed  ” ; and  adds,  “ if  I had  wanted 
an  exact  likeness  I should  have  preferred  Frans  Hals 
to  Titian.”  The  exact  likeness  was  what  Hals  was 
after.  He  had  little  sense  of  beauty.  He  was  capable 
of  some  gravity  and  dignity,  but  beside  Velasquez  he 
is  common.  He  was  a great  student  of  expression, 
but,  compared  with  Rembrandt’s  intensity  of  life,  his 
figures  grimace.  There  is  rarely  anything  subtle 


FRANS  HALS 


109 


about  him,  and  never  anything  poetic ; he  saw  with  ad- 
mirable clearness  and  rendered  with  wonderful  accu- 
racy just  what  every  one  may  see.  He  was,  as  nearly 
as  possible,  the  absolute  realist. 

No  artist  ever  lived,  however,  who  had  not  an 
ideal.  With  Hals,  as  with  many  a literary  realist, 
that  ideal  is  to  be  found  in  his  style — his  personal 
manner  of  expression.  What  he  says  is  obvious 
enough,  but  the  way  in  which  he  says  it  is  inimitable. 
He  is  an  almost  unapproachable  master  of  the  lan- 
guage of  painting.  Pure  art  is  always  an  arrange- 
ment of  something,  notes  or  forms  or  colours  or  words ; 
what  Hals  arranged  was  brush-strokes,  and  his  mere 
handling  becomes  a contribution  to  the  aesthetic  pleas- 
ures of  the  world.  He  was  a master  stylist,  and  the 
greatest  virtues  of  style,  in  painting  as  in  writing,  are, 
after  all,  clarity  and  precision.  We  are  apt  to  be  car- 
ried away  by  his  ease,  his  rapidity,  his  brilliancy  and 
crispness  of  touch,  and  to  imagine  that  these  are  his 
great  qualities ; but  any  one  can  be  rapid  and  easy — 
what  is  truly  amazing  with  Hals,  in  his  prime,  is  his 
certainty.  What  astounds  is  not  that  the  touch  is 
instantaneous  and  slashing,  but  that  each  of  these  in- 
stantaneous slashes  is  infallibly  in  exactly  the  right 
place,  and  of  exactly  the  right  shape  to  express  the 
form  and  texture  of  the  thing  he  would  render.  What 
we  call  painting,  in  the  narrower  sense,  is,  after  all,  the 
expression  of  form  with  the  brush,  and  Hals  was  an 
almost  impeccable  draughtsman.  His  sense  of  form 


110 


FRANS  HALS 


is  not  delicate,  but,  except  for  an  occasional  tendency 
to  elongate  the  forearm,  it  is  unerring.  Whoever 
would  imitate  him  must  begin  with  acquiring  his  mas- 
tery of  drawing.  His  characteristic  combination  of 
rather  commonplace  vision  with  extraordinary  powers 
of  execution  finds,  perhaps,  its  highest  exemplifica- 
tion in  the  “St.  Adraen’s  Shooting  Guild”  of  1633, 
though  there  are  many  examples  of  it  nearly  as  won- 
derful. 

Somewhere  about  1635  a new  element  seems  to  enter 
into  Hals’s  work.  His  tone  becomes  graver,  his  colour 
somewhat  warmer,  his  light  and  shade  more  suffused, 
his  interest  in  the  rendering  of  objects  more  subordi- 
nated to  the  study  of  atmosphere.  In  a word,  his  art 
becomes  more  Rembrandtesque,  and  it  has  long  been 
thought  that,  during  this  period,  he  came  under  the 
influence  of  the  master,  more  than  twenty  years  his 
junior,  who  was  painting,  only  thirteen  miles  away,  at 
Amsterdam.  Fromentin  first  called  attention  to  the 
resemblance  of  Hals’s  picture  of  “ The  Regents  of 
St.  Elisabeth’s  Hospital”  (1641)  to  Rembrandt’s 
“ Syndics.”  Mr.  Davies  points  out  that  this  resem- 
blance is  purely  superficial,  consisting  mainly  of  the 
likeness  in  number  of  figures,  arrangement,  costume, 
etc.,  and  that,  as  Rembrandt’s  picture  was  painted 
twenty  years  later  than  Hals’s,  these  things,  if  they 
prove  anything,  prove  rather  that  the  younger  master 
was  indebted  to  the  elder  than  the  reverse.  He  points 
out,  also,  that  during  the  years  from  1635  to  (say) 


HALS;  ST.  ADRAEN  S SHOOTING  GUILD 


FRANS  HALS 


HI 


1643,  during  which  the  Rembrandt  influence  is  sup- 
posed to  have  existed,  Hals  produced  many  pictures 
which  show  no  trace  of  this  influence.  This  is  unde- 
niably true,  but  is  not  surprising.  Many  of  the  ac- 
cepted dates  of  Hals’s  pictures  are  conjectural,  but 
the  “ St.  Joris’s  Shooting  Company  ” is  certainly  of 
1639,  and  shows  no  Rembrandtesque  qualities.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  one  of  the  poorest  of  the  series  of 
corporation  pictures,  and  might  be  thought  to  show 
that  Hals,  even  when  not  experimenting  in  his  new 
manner,  was  losing  interest  in  his  old.  Other  work 
of  this  time,  like  “ The  Merry  Toper,”  is  of  the  nature 
of  brilliant  sketching,  and  may  be  supposed  to  have 
been  done  as  a relaxation — a playing  with  that  of 
which  he  was  sure  between  serious  efforts  at  that  which 
was  harder  for  him.  Two  portraits  at  Frankfort 
(said  to  be  of  1638)  are  dismissed  by  Mr.  Davies 
as  too  much  restored  to  be  fair  tests.  The  Maria 
Voogt”  of  1639  he  considers  to  be  like  Rembrandt 
mainly  in  externals  of  costume  and  so  forth.  The 
“Old  Lady”  of  the  Bridgewater  Gallery  (1640),  he 
admits  to  be  very  like  Rembrandt,  saying  that,  if  it 
be  indisputably  genuine,  “I  can  see  no  escape  from 
the  admission  that  we  have  here  Hals  experimenting 
in  the  style  of  Rembrandt,  and  carrying  his  experi- 
ment to  the  length  of  scarcely  disguised  imitation.” 
In  all  the  other  pictures  he  sees  no  more  than  a growth 
of  Hals’s  sense  of  atmosphere,  which  he  thinks  requires 
to  be  accounted  for  by  no  outside  influence.  He  does 


112 


FRANS  HALS 


not  mention  at  all  a portrait  of  “Feyntje  van  Steen- 
kiste  ” in  the  Rijks  Museum,  which,  judging  from  the 
reproduction  alone,  is  one  of  the  most  Rembrandtesque 
things  Hals  ever  painted. 

It  is  evident,  from  the  dates  alone,  that  we  must 
leave  Rembrandt’s  later  work  out  of  the  count  in  con- 
sidering his  possible  influence  upon  Hals.  Indeed, 
after  1640,  Rembrandt  ceased  to  influence  anybody, 
even  his  own  pupils.  It  is  not  the  Rembrandt  of  the 
“ Syndics,”  but  rather  the  Rembrandt  of  the  “ Anat- 
omy Lesson”  that  must  be  reckoned  with;  the  rela- 
tively grayer,  smoother  painter,  then  at  the  height  of 
popularity.  Hals  was,  as  a mere  technician,  the 
superior,  and  would  not  be  likely  to  change  his  hand- 
ling ; the  influence  that  Rembrandt  would  have  would  be 
precisely  in  that  “ growth  of  the  sense  of  atmosphere  ” 
which  was  his  gift  to  the  whole  Dutch  school.  It  is 
incredible  that  such  a genius  as  Rembrandt  should  not 
have  influenced  any  painter  living  within  thirteen 
miles  of  him.  The  wonder  is — and  it  is  a proof  of 
Hals’s  powerful  individuality — that  the  Influence  was 
not  more  marked  and  more  dominant  than  it  appears 
to  have  been.  It  seems  to  have  begun  about  1634  or 
1635,  reached  its  height,  perhaps,  with  the  Bridge- 
water  portrait,  and  was  already  declining  when 
the  “ Regents  ” was  painted  in  1641.  In  that  picture 
there  are  sharp,  pure  blacks  in  the  flesh-shadows  which 
are  unlike  anything  in  Rembrandt,  and  which  become 
characteristic  of  Hals  in  his  later  works. 


FRANS  HALS 


113 


During  this  Rembrandtesque  period,  Hals  produced 
his  noblest  pictures — those  which  are  nearest  to  being 
great  works  of  art  as  well  as  great  pieces  of  painting. 
After  that  period  his  technical  powers  begin  to  de- 
cline. He  was  more  than  sixty  years  old,  and,  if  he 
had  in  reality  been  the  drunkard  he  has  been  called,  it 
is  incredible  that  he  should  have  held  them  so  long. 
After  1641  his  works  become  few  and  far  between, 
but  a picture  here  and  there  helps  to  bridge  the  gap 
that  formerly  existed  between  the  great  canvas  of  that 
year  and  the  last  efforts  of  his  genius,  the  two  Regent 
pictures  of  1664.  In  these  rare  works  positive  colour 
tends  more  and  more  to  disappear,  the  palette  is  re- 
duced to  its  lowest  terms,  blackness  invades  everything. 
The  handling  is  still  free,  freer  than  ever — but  it 
gradually  ceases  to  be  precise.  What  we  call  tone  is 
taking  the  place  of  colour,  and  form  is  giving  way  to 
suggestion.  From  failure  of  eye,  the  heads  tend  to 
grow  larger  than  life ; from  failure  of  hand,  the  touch 
becomes  loose  and  fumbling.  He  is  no  longer  capable 
of  the  marvels  of  rendering  of  his  younger  days,  but 
the  acquired  knowledge  of  a lifetime  is  still  there. 
The  language  stumbles,  but  it  is  a master  who  speaks. 
In  the  last  pictures  of  all,  painted  by  an  old  man  de- 
pendent upon  poor-rates,  who  was  at  least  eighty  and 
may  have  been  eighty-four  years  of  age,  there  is  a 
certain  largeness  of  vision,  a certain  way  of  seeing 
things  by  their  great  relations,  which  marks  him, 
more  than  ever,  the  artist.  In  the  male  group, 


114* 


FRANS  HALS 


especially,  the  drawing  has  gone  all  to  wreck,  and 
even  the  sense  of  resemblance  is  no  longer  con- 
vincing; but  the  feeling  of  tone  and  of  unity  of 
effect  has  become  so  great  that  there  are  not  wanting 
artists  to  proclaim  it,  everything  considered,  his  finest 
work.  Two  years  later  he  died  in  the  “ old  man’s 
home  ” of  which  these,  his  latest  sitters,  were  gov- 
ernors. 

From  all  that  has  gone  before,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
divine  where,  in  the  hierarchy  of  painters,  Frans  Hals 
belongs.  His  range  is  too  limited,  his  sense  of  beauty 
too  restricted,  his  intellectual  value  too  slight,  to  allow 
us  to  place  him  among  the  great  ones  of  the  earth. 
Not  only  can  he  not  be  placed,  with  Michelangelo  and 
Rembrandt,  among  the  poets,  but  his  prose  is  far  less 
various  and  elevated  than  that  of  Velasquez.  For 
clearness  and  vigour  of  statement,  for  “ truth  of  char- 
acter ” and  “ exact  likeness,”  he  has  no  superior,  and 
the  language  of  painting,  as  applied  to  the  enunciation 
of  fairly  obvious  truths,  has  no  greater  master.  Some- 
where below  the  baker’s  dozen  of  the  very  greatest, 
but  on  a pedestal  of  his  own,  he  will  stand  for  ever  in 
the  temple  of  fame. 


REMBRANDT 


OF  all  the  great  masters  of  painting  none  is 
more  popular  to-day  than  Rembrandt.  No 
one  is  more  admired  by  painters,  and  no 
one  is  so  much  written  about  and  praised  by  critics. 
The  solitary  old  man  whose  fame  was  already  so  for- 
gotten that  his  death  was  unnoticed  by  his  contem- 
poraries, and  whose  portraits,  a few  years  later, 
could  be  bought  for  “sixpence  apiece,”  is  now  con- 
sidered by  many  the  greatest  of  all  masters.  Dozens 
of  earnest  searchers  rummage  in  musty  records  to 
glean  the  slightest  fact  connected  with  his  life,  and 
books  and  articles  without  end  are  devoted  to  his 
memory.  After  three  hundred  years  his  strangely 
original  genius  is  appreciated,  if  not  understood, 
and  long-neglected  pictures  are  brought  forth  from 
garrets  and  given  places  of  honour  in  great  museums 
or  sold  for  enormous  sums  to  American  millionaires. 
M.  £mile  Michel  has  written  an  elaborate  life  of  the 
artist  and  Mr.  Charles  Knowles  Bolton  has  devoted 
a volume  entirely  to  Saskia  because  she  was  Rem- 
brandt’s wife. 

A Life  of  Rembrandt  reads  much  like  a Life  of 
Shakspere.  Really  next  to  nothing  is  known  about 
it,  and  the  elaborate  investigations  undertaken  of 

115 


116 


REMBRANDT 


late  years  have  served  more  to  destroy  legends 
formerly  believed  than  to  add  much  of  authentic 
information.  “Possibly”  and  “perhaps”  are  the 
ever-recurring  words,  and  we  are  more  often  told  that 
he  may,  might,  could,  would,  or  should  have  done 
or  felt  this  or  that  than  that  he  really  did  so.  The 
possibilities,  too,  have  a strange  knack  of  becoming 
probabilities,  and  the  probabilities  certainties  in  a 
few  pages,  and  so  lend  themselves  as  bases  of  deduc- 
tion for  new  possibilities,  which  go  through  the  same 
transformation.  Most  of  M.  Michel’s  guessing  is 
plausible  and  seems  to  have  some  foundation  in  the 
only  real  record  of  Rembrandt’s  life — his  work,  which 
is  generally  dated.  The  system  is  burlesqued  in  Mr. 
Bolton’s  little  book  on  Saskia.  Of  Saskia  nothing 
is  known  at  all  except  her  birth  and  parentage,  the 
date  of  her  marriage,  the  dates  of  the  birth  of  her 
children  and  of  her  own  death,  and  such  an  idea 
of  her  personal  appearance  as  can  be  gathered  from 
various  portraits  more  or  less  plausibly  assumed  to  be 
hers,  and  very  different  from  each  other  in  expression 
and  even  in  feature.  How  then  write  a Life  of  her? 
The  task  is  easy.  Bring  in  the  Prince  of  Orange  and 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Alexandre  Dumas  and  “ La  Tulipe 
Noire,”  lions,  monkeys,  and  Dr.  Tulp;  assume  that 
if  Rembrandt  scratches  an  etching  of  a woman  in  bed, 
Saskia  is  failing  fast,  and  then  introduce  a most 
robust  personage  as  a portrait  of  her  a year  later; 
make  her  a good  influence  in  his  life,  and  tell  how. 


REMBRANDT 


117 


after  her  death,  ‘^his  hand  etched  pictures  unworthy  ” 
of  him,  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  the  worst  of  the 
“ free”  subjects  are  of  the  year  1640 — and  the  thing 
is  done.  On  page  2,  “Rombertus  van  Ulenburgh, 
the  father  of  Saskia,  in  the  early  autumn  of  the  year 
1578  was  a student  in  some  foreign  university,  per- 
haps at  Paris  or  in  England.”  On  page  3,  “ he  must 
have  enjoyed  his  walk  to  the  Thames  to  see  the  barge 
of  Leicester  pass,  or  to  look  upon  the  gray  beard  and 
knitted  eyebrows  of  Burleigh,  the  great  minister.” 

M.  Michel  is  not  so  bad  as  this,  but  even  M.  Michel 
works  his  guesses  rather  hard.  He  objects,  justly, 
to  the  “mania  for  identification”  which  has  given 
various  historic  names  to  Rembrandt’s  portraits  and 
etchings,  but  he  is  not  free  from  the  malady  himself. 
His  identification  of  Rembrandt’s  father  is  plausible, 
but  he  makes  Saskias  and  Hendrick jes  of  female 
figures,  nude  or  costumed,  that  have  slight  resem- 
blances to  each  other,  and,  once  having  decided  that 
Rembrandt  worked  much  from  members  of  his  house- 
hold, will  have  brothers  and  sisters  and  servants  at 
every  turn.  Perhaps  the  strangest  of  all  is  his 
identification  of  the  so-called  Sobiesky  with  Rem- 
brandt himself,  in  spite  of  a discrepancy  of  ten  or 
fifteen  years  between  the  apparent  age  of  the  model 
and  the  date  of  the  picture.  Yet  the  master  played 
such  strange  tricks  with  his  own  features  that  it  is 
not  impossible  he  played  this  one. 

Eliminating  the  conjectural  in  Rembrandt’s  life. 


118 


REMBRANDT 


what  is  left  that  is  important  can  be  briefly  enough 
told.  Rembrandt  Harmensz,  who  sometimes  called 
himself  Van  Rjn,  was  born  in  Leyden  of  a respect- 
able lower-middle-class  family  on  the  15th  day  of 
July,  1606-7  or  8 — for  the  date  even  is  uncertain, 
and  there  seems  about  as  much  documentary  evidence 
for  one  of  these  years  as  for  the  others.  No  record 
of  Rembrandt’s  early  youth  has  come  down  to  us, 
but  the  may-have-beens  bravely  fill  the  gap.  He  was 
enrolled  in  the  university,  but  how  much  he  studied 
there  we  can  only  guess.  At  “about”  the  age  of 
fifteen  he  began  the  study  of  art  with  a bad  painter, 
Jacob  van  Swanenburch,  and  “probably”  stayed 
with  him  three  years.  In  1624  he  went  to  Amster- 
dam to  study  with  a painter  of  greater  reputation, 
the  Italianizer  Pieter  Lastman,  but  remained  in  his 
studio  less  than  six  months,  when  he  returned  to  Ley- 
den, determined  “ to  study  and  practise  painting 
alone,  in  his  own  fashion.”  This  was  in  1624,  and 
his  earliest  known  works,  the  “ St.  Paul  in  Prison  ” 
in  the  Stuttgart  Museum  and  “ The  Money 
Changer”  in  the  Berlin  Gallery,  are  dated  1627,  so 
that  three  years  are  unaccounted  for.  After  this 
time  he  soon  began  to  be  celebrated,  so  much  so  that 
Gerard  Dou  became  his  pupil  in  1628  and  remained 
with  him  until  1631.  That  Dou  was  his  pupil  seems 
strange  until  one  finds  that  Rembrandt’s  work  at  this 
time  was  much  more  like  Don’s  than  like  his  own  later 
productions.  In  1631,  when  he  went  to  settle 


REMBRANDT 


119 


definitely  in  Amsterdam,  he  was  already  a well-known 
painter,  and  was  shortly  the  fashionable  portrait- 
painter  of  the  day.  The  next  year,  when  he  was 
not  more  than  twenty-six  years  old,  he  painted  the 
“Anatomy  Lesson,”  which  set  the  cap-sheaf  on  his 
glory  and  made  him  the  most  famous  of  Dutch 
artists. 

At  this  time  he  met  Saskia  van  Uylenborch,  a 
young  woman  of  a much  wealthier  and  better  family 
than  his  own,  and  was  welcomed  as  an  aspirant  by  her 
relatives,  and  married  her  in  1634.  In  1639  he 
bought  the  house  in  the  Breestraat  that  was  never 
paid  for,  and  filled  it  with  the  collections  that  figured 
in  his  inventory  eighteen  years  later.  He  was  fond 
of  his  wife  and  his  work,  always  busy,  the  master  of 
many  pupils,  earning  much  money,  and  spending  it 
lavishly  on  his  wife  and  on  his  collections.  He 
bought  paintings,  engravings,  and  bric-a-brac  at 
extravagant  prices,  and  seems  to  have  been  regularly 
fleeced  by  dealers  and  money-lenders.  Titus,  the 
only  child  of  his  marriage  that  lived  to  maturity,  was 
born  in  1641,  and  Saskia  died  in  June  of  the  next 
year.  In  that  year  also  he  painted  “ The  Night 
Watch,”  that  puzzling  picture  which  generations  of 
critics  have  fought  over,  and  which  Capt.  Cocq  and 
his  company,  for  whom  it  was  painted,  understood  as 
little  as  the  rest  of  the  world.  This  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end.  Rembrandt  was  becoming  too 
original  to  be  popular;  and  as  time  went  on,  and  his 


REMBRANDT 


ISO 

work  grew  better  and  better,  the  public  neglected 
him  more  and  more.  He  shut  himself  up  in  his  work, 
made  his  servant,  Hendrick je  StofFels,  his  mistress, 
and  let  his  finances  take  care  of  themselves.  The 
crash  came,  and  in  1657  he  was  declared  a bankrupt, 
and  sold  up.  From  that  time  his  life  becomes  more 
and  more  sordid  and  miserable.  He  had  no  money  of 
his  own,  and  could  have  none,  and  Hendrick  je  and 
Titus,  in  partnership,  took  charge  of  all  his  affairs, 
and  made  him  an  allowance.  In  1661  he  painted  his 
grand  picture  of  “ The  Syndics,”  perhaps  the  great- 
est of  his  masterpieces,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  admired.  It  is  likely  that  his  eyes  were  beginning 
to  fail,  for  his  etchings  cease  altogether  from  this 
year,  and  from  1662  to  1664  there  is  no  work  at  all 
from  his  hand.  Hendrick  je  must  have  died  about 
this  time,  though  there  is  no  record  of  it.  Titus 
married  and  died,  both  in  1668,  and  in  1669  the  old 
man  himself  followed  him,  an  obscure  pauper.  He 
left  a daughter  by  Hendrickje,  who  did  not  live  long. 
In  the  next  generation  his  posterity  seems  to  have 
become  extinct. 

But  if  the  known  facts  of  his  life  may  be  thus 
briefly  catalogued,  it  is  very  different  with  his  work. 
In  this  also  is  he  like  Shakspere,  that  commentary  and 
discussion  on  his  art  are  endless,  and  that  judgments 
on  it  have  been  passed  which  differ  as  the  North 
from  the  South.  One  extreme  is  marked  by  the 
opinion  of  a painter  of  the  next  generation,  Gerard  de 


REMBRANDT 


121 


Lairesse,  a contemporary  and  rival  of  Van  der  WerfF, 
which  Michel  quotes  as  follows : “ In  his  efforts  to 
attain  a mellow  manner,  Rembrandt  merely  achieved 
an  effect  of  rottenness.  The  vulgar  and  prosaic 
aspects  of  a subject  were  the  only  ones  he  was  cap- 
able of  noting,  and,  with  his  red  and  yellow  tones, 
he  set  the  fatal  example  of  shadows  so  hot  they  seem 
aglow,  and  colours  which  seem  to  lie  like  liquid  mud 
upon  the  canvas.”  The  other  extreme  is  marked  by 
the  latter-day  thick-and-thin  admirers  of  the  master, 
who  maintain  that  he  was  not  only  a great  poet  in 
light  and  shade,  but  a great  colourist  and  a great 
draughtsman  as  well,  and  who  lay  all  the  blame  of 
the  ugliness  of  some  of  his  figures  upon  the  models. 
M.  Michel  is  explicit  and  reiterative  upon  this  point, 
and  considers  poor  Saskia  and  Hendrickje  responsible 
for  the  bandy  legs,  sprawling  hands,  and  stumpy 
bodies  of  various  Susannahs,  Bathshebas,  and  Danaes. 
He  expatiates  on  the  difficulty  of  securing  models  in 
virtuous  Holland,  and  explains  that  Rembrandt  had 
to  take  what  he  could  get.  Many  of  Rembrandt’s 
portraits,  however,  are  as  ill-proportioned  as  his  nude 
studies,  while  the  works  of  Ter  Borch  and  Metzu,  his 
contemporaries,  and  of  Vermeer  of  Delft,  but  little 
younger,  are  there  to  show  that  there  was  grace  and 
beauty  and  refinement  in  Dutch  life  at  the  time. 
M.  Auguste  Breal  takes  stronger  ground.  He  has  no 
patience  with  those  who  regret  or  apologise  for  Rem- 
brandt’s coarseness,  and  would  take  from  him  his 


REMBRANDT 


“broad  subjects ” merely  because  they  are  “ unworthy 
of  his  genius.”  Rembrandt’s  work  was  all  of  a piece. 
“ ‘ Classic  ’ beauty  is  not  his  province.  Life  is  what  he 
seeks,  the  life  that  he  knows  and  understands.” 

“Do  the  coats  of  the  Syndics,  or  their  conical 
hats  . . . remind  you  of  the  harmonious  draperies 
in  the  friezes  of  the  Parthenon  ? And  if  you  admit 
that  Rembrandt  has  been  able  to  find  and  make  you 
feel  a new  beauty  ...  in  the  lines,  colours,  and  re- 
flections of  his  fellow-townsmen’s  clothed  bodies,  why 
do  you  refuse  to  see  the  delicate  tones,  the  palpitating 
flesh,  the  marvellous  suppleness  of  line  and  modelling, 
the  comprehension  of  certain  harmonies  of  the  human 
body  shown  by  Rembrandt  in  his  nudes  ? Accustomed 
to  see  the  representatives  of  an  academic  tradition  ex- 
hibit their  carefully  cleaned,  smoothed,  and  polished 
dolls,  . . . the  sight  of  something  real  shocks  and 
disgusts  you.  ...  If  any  one  of  our  contempo- 
raries, worn  out  by  the  driving  life  of  towns,  or  any 
townswoman  of  the  twentieth  century,  deformed  by 
stays,  grown  heavy  by  overfeeding,  or  exhausted  by 
a life  in  which  little  attention  is  given  to  ‘ eurythmy,’ 
should  be  tempted  to  reproach  Rembrandt  with  a 
realism  that  seems  at  first  sight  excessive,  they  should 
reflect  that  Rembrandt  is  perhaps  the  only  one  of  the 
old  masters  who  would  have  been  capable  of  feeling, 
expressing,  and  making  us  understand  and  love  the 
living  charm  and  grace  hidden  in  these  bodies  of  ours, 
bodies  on  which  we  heap  our  mendacious  dresses,  and 


REMBRANDT  : THE  SYNDICS 


REMBRANDT 


12S 


of  which  we  fear  the  nakedness  because  we  do  not 
know  how  to  see  the  beauty.” 

All  this  is  good  and  healthy  criticism  as  far  as  it 
goes,  but  it  does  not  quite  satisfy.  Let  any  painter 
who  has  spent  thirty  years  studying  the  human  body 
without  its  “mendacious  dresses”  say  whether  Rem- 
brandt’s women  are  not  vastly  uglier  than  life.  Let 
him  who  has  seen  how  supremely  lovely  can  be  the 
body  of  a young  girl,  how  much  harmonious  line  and 
beauty  of  structure  is  to  be  found,  by  him  who  has 
eyes  for  it,  in  the  forms  of  the  commonest  models,  say 
whether  the  one  word  “realism”  adequately  explains 
the  hideousness  of  these  “ Dianas  ” and  “ Bathshebas.” 
Michelangelo  did  not  make  “smooth  and  polished 
dolls,”  but  he  would  have  seen  wonders  of  beautiful 
form  and  line  in  any  human  body  because  form  and 
line  were  what  he  was  looking  for.  Rembrandt  did 
not  see  them  because  he  had  no  care  for  form  and 
line.  His  one  love  was  character,  his  one  aim  ex- 
pression, his  one  means  light  and  shade.  When  Rem- 
brandt does  show  a sense  of  beauty,  his  worshippers 
cry  aloud  and  call  upon  us  to  admire  it;  why  should 
they  not  admit  that  more  often  he  does  not  show  it? 
Fromentin’s  remark,  that  Rembrandt  saw  nothing  in 
life  “but  physical  ugliness  and  moral  beauty,”  still 
remains,  as  does  so  much  else  that  he  has  written,  the 
truest  word  of  criticism  upon  that  strange  genius. 

Indeed,  Fromentin’s  analysis  of  Rembrandt’s  gen- 
ius remains  the  best  yet  written,  and  I need  make  no 


124 


REMBRANDT 


apology  for  condensing  a part  of  it.  According  to 
our  teacher,  then,  Rembrandt  was  two  men  in  one. 
On  the  one  hand  was  the  thoroughly  trained  Dutch 
painter  of  the  time,  the  realist  par  excellencey  the  per- 
fect technician,  the  observer,  Vhomme  exterieur.  Of 
this  Rembrandt  no  better  example  could  be  cited  than 
that  known  to  all  of  us,  “ The  Gilder.  ” Here  is  no 
poetry,  no  idealism,  no  style,  but  a piece  of  work  so 
thorough,  so  wonderful,  so  truly  seen  and  rendered, 
that  it  rightly  ranks  among  the  masterpieces  of  the 
world.  This  is  the  Rembrandt  who  was  the  idol  of 
the  Dutch  public,  the  man  whom  the  compatriots  of 
Ter  Borch  adored.  The  other  Rembrandt  was  an 
idealist,  a dreamer  of  strange  dreams,  a worshipper  of 
light.  The  “ Supper  at  Emmaus  ” in  the  Louvre  is 
his  work.  The  mysterious  charm  and  power  of  such 
work  as  this  is  indescribable  and  incommunicable.  For 
once  a result  seems  to  have  been  produced  in  art  with- 
out any  visible  or  analysable  means.  Something 
supernatural  seems  before  one,  and  one  feels  himself  in 
the  presence  of  a being  who  has  really  died  and  risen 
again.  Yet  in  technical  matters  the  picture  is  every 
way  inferior  to  the  portrait  of  “The  Gilder.”  It  is 
not  particularly  well  drawn,  and  it  is  entirely  without 
colour.  In  its  physical  appearance  the  canvas  is  mean 
and  insignificant — and  its  handling  is  timid  and  almost 
fumbling.  With  something  to  say  that  had  never 
been  said,  how  should  he  say  it  with  assurance  and  in 
the  current  language  of  art.^ 


REMBRANDT 


125 


As  long  as  these  two  Rembrandts  were  separate,  one 
was  sure  to  please.  But  the  dreamer  insisted  on 
having  a hand  in  works  where  the  observer  only  was 
needed,  and  the  result  was  such  an  enigmatic  picture 
as  “ The  Night  Watch.”  It  is  a splendid  failure,  and 
Capt.  Cocq  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  preferring  the 
accomplished  mediocrity  of  Van  der  Heist.  Again 
the  two  Rembrandts  take  up  their  different  tasks,  but 
the  public  confidence  is  shaken,  and  public  favour  is 
deflected  upon  more  reliable  artists  who  can  be  trusted 
not  to  dream  mal-apropos.  Shut  off  from  public 
favour  and  public  commissions,  the  dreamer  is 
strengthened  and  the  technician  weakened.  Strange 
experiments  are  made,  violences  are  resorted  to, 
methods  become  more  and  more  startling  and  original. 
Late  in  life,  once  or  twice  only,  the  master-painter  and 
the  great  imaginer  coincide,  and  pictures  like  “ The 
Syndics  ” are  produced — pictures  in  which  imagina- 
tion and  observation  work  together  for  the  production 
of  the  perfect  masterpiece ; but  it  is  too  late,  and  the 
technique,  perfect  as  it  is,  is  no  longer  the  smooth 
accomplishment  of  earlier  days.  No  one  comprehends 
and  no  one  cares,  and  the  great  painter  drops  into 
his  neglected  grave. 

A colourist,  save  once  or  twice,  Rembrandt  never 
was.  Neither  was  he,  properly  speaking,  a draughts- 
man. M.  Breal  has  pointed  out  that  Rembrandt  never 
drew  a single  figure,  there  being  always  some  sugges- 
tion, however  slight,  of  the  surroundings  in  which  it  is 


126 


REMBRANDT 


placed.  It  may  be  as  truly  said  that  he  never  drew 
an  outline.  When  he  seems  working  in  pure  line  it  is 
not  the  contour  he  is  drawing — ^his  line  follows  the 
mass,  suggests  the  direction  of  folds  or  the  bagging 
of  muscles,  breaks,  and  continues  again.  The  line 
itself  is  suggested  (or  potential)  light  and  shade. 
Beauty  of  form,  as  such,  was  nothing  to  him,  and  he 
cared  for  form  at  all  only  as  it  gave  surfaces  for 
light  to  fall  on  and  shadows  to  catch  in.  He  drew 
a woman  as  he  did  a pig,  from  the  picturesque  point 
of  view ; and  the  creased  and  flabby  shapes  of  his  ugly 
women  were  better y for  his  purposes,  than  would  have 
been  the  rounded  limbs  of  a Greek  nymph.  So  he 
expressed  the  soul  of  a poet  through  forms  of  an 
astounding  \Tilgarity,  and  conveyed  a depth  of  senti- 
ment almost  unique  in  art,  though  the  figures  he  drew 
are  often  almost  inconceivably  grotesque. 

Of  chiaroscuro  he  is  the  supreme  master.  It  is  al- 
most his  only  method  of  expression,  and  with  it  he  says 
such  strange  things  as  were  never,  before  or  since, 
said  by  art,  and  makes  us  dimly  see  one  of  the  greatest 
and  most  profoundly  original  minds  in  the  world’s 
history.  Like  all  such  minds,  he  had  no  artistic  pos- 
terity, and  worked  almost  pure  harm  to  those  who 
were  influenced  by  him.  Like  Michelangelo,  he  was 
the  ruin  of  his  followers.  The  language  of  these  sol- 
itary minds  is  fitted  only  for  the  expression  of  their 
own  thoughts,  and  becomes  empty  verbiage  in  the 
mouths  of  imitators. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE 


There  is  a great  fascination  in  the  incom- 
plete, and  a glory  in  understanding  the  mis- 
understood and  admiring  the  unappreciated. 
When  any  man  has  fully  and  clearly  expressed  him- 
self— when  what  he  had  to  do  or  say  in  the  world  is 
thoroughly  done  and  unmistakably  said — why  bother 
one’s  self  to  explain  the  clear  or  interpret  the  known  ? 
But  the  half  articulate  genius  whose  message  the 
people  have  not  heard  or  comprehended,  the  fire  of 
whose  inspiration  is  smothered  in  its  own  smoke — ^the 
man  of  fitful  force  and  unbalanced  power — ^he  fur- 
nishes to  the  discerning  critic  his  true  opportunity. 
There  is  little  credit  to  be  had  in  praising  what  all 
the  world  admires,  and  little  need  for  ingenuity  to 
read  what  is  plainly  written ; but  it  needs  a penetrat- 
ing mind  to  discern  the  beauties  of  what  most  of  the 
world  despises,  and  to  find  or  invent  a meaning  in  what 
men  take  for  madness.  So  there  is  more  written  of 
William  Blake  than  of  Veronese,  and  almost  as  much 
as  of  Michelangelo. 

Whether  or  not  Blake  was  actually  mad  is  a ques- 
tion for  the  professional  alienist  to  decide.  Perfectly 
sane  he  certainly  was  not.  He  spoke  constantly  of  his 
“visions”  as  having  objective  reality;  but  whether 

127 


1^8 


WILLIAM  BLAKE 


this  was  hallucination  or  mystification,  who  can  tell? 
He  was  incoherent  to  the  verge  of  raving,  vain- 
glorious to  a degree  that  suggests  the  folie  des  gran- 
deurs, and  suspicious  and  unjust  to  an  extent  which 
reminds  one  of  the  mania  of  persecution.  Whether 
he  was  or  was  not  mad,  his  was  assuredly  a singularly 
ill-regulated,  unbalanced,  and  untrained  mind.  In 
art  his  education  was  little  enough,  but  it  was,  fortu- 
nately for  him,  of  the  right  kind.  In  literature  he  had 
almost  no  education  at  all,  and  a good  deal  of  what 
he  had  was  of  the  wrong  kind.  The  hard  and  dry 
style  of  engraving  he  learned  from  his  master  Basire 
was  eminently  salutary  to  Blake  as  an  artist.  In  spite 
of  his  strange  genius  he  was  technically  a convinced 
classicist.  He  was  amusingly  bigoted  in  his  denunci- 
ation of  the  colourists  and  of  “ that  infernal  machine 
called  Chiaroscuro,”  and  maintained  that  “the  great 
and  golden  rule  of  art,  as  well  as  of  life,  is  this:  That 
the  more  distinct,  sharp,  and  wiry  the  boundlng- 
line,  the  more  perfect  the  work  of  art;  and  the  less 
keen  and  sharp  the  greater  is  the  evidence  of  weak 
imitation,  plagiarism,  and  bungling.” 

Of  course  this  is  silly  and  one-sided,  and  largely 
the  result  of  ignorance  and  prejudice ; but  there  is  an 
element  of  truth  in  it.  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  “nature  put  him  out”;  that,  as  he 
said  of  himself,  “natural  objects  always  did  . . * 

weaken,  deaden,  and  obliterate  imagination”  in  him. 
Now  painting,  as  we  understand  it  since  the  Venetians, 


WILLIAM  BLAKE 


129 


requires  for  its  perfection  the  direct  study  of  nature, 
and,  therefore,  was  not  for  him  who  found  that  the 
posed  model  “smelt  of  mortality,”  and  who  was  not 
strong  enough  (as  the  truly  great  artists  have  been) 
to  make  nature  serve  him  rather  than  allow  nature  to 
master  him.  Michelangelo  did  not  find  even  the 
“mortality”  of  the  dissecting-room  deadening  to  his 
imagination.  Yet  Blake  felt  that  in  art  mere  vague- 
ness was  death.  The  highest  imagination  is  always 
the  most  definite,  and  “a  spirit  and  a vision  are  not, 
as  the  modern  philosophy  supposes,  a cloudy  vapour  or 
a nothing;  they  are  organised  and  minutely  articu- 
lated beyond  all  that  the  mortal  and  perishing  nature 
can  produce.  . . . Spirits  are  organised  men.” 

Debarred  from  great  realisation  he  found  safety  in 
the  very  hardness  and  dryness  of  his  method,  which 
gives  a sense  of  accuracy  even  when  accuracy  is  absent, 
and  makes  even  false  drawing  look  marvellously  sure 
and  vivid.  His  wildest  creations  seem  as  if  they  must 
have  been  really  observed,  because  his  method  of  state- 
ment is  so  precise;  and  they  owe  half  their  effect  to 
that  cause.  His  style  “fitted  him,”  and  gives  the 
same  reality  to  his  apocalyptic  visions  which  those  of 
Diirer  possess. 

In  literature,  however,  Blake  had  nothing  answer- 
ing to  the  training  in  clarity  and  precision  which,  as 
a draughtsman,  he  had  gained  fi*om  his  long  practice 
of  engraving  and  of  drawing  Gothic  monuments.  He 
was  altogether  self-educated,  and  ignorant  even  of 


130 


WILLIAM  BLAKE 


grammar.  He  shared  in  the  admiration  for  Ossian 
that  was  common  in  his  time,  and  retained  it  after  the 
rest  of  the  world  had  outgrown  it.  He  always  main- 
tained that  both  Ossian  and  Chatterton’s  “Rowley” 
were  genuine  beings,  and  “ owned  himself  an  admirer 
of  Ossian  equally  with  any  other  poet  whatever.” 
His  early  “ Songs  of  Innocence  and  Experience,”  in 
spite  of  grammatical  and  metrical  stumbles,  contain, 
as  we  all  know,  much  lyrical  power  and  true  beauty ; 
but  when  he  began  to  occupy  himself  with  religion 
and  philosophy,  to  form  a theory  of  the  universe  and 
of  good  and  evil,  and  to  make  myths  which  should 
convey  his  notions  on  these  subjects,  both  his  thinking 
and  his  style  were  those  of  an  untrained  and  un- 
balanced mind.  The  so-called  “ prophetic  books  ” are 
“ full  of  sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing.” 

They  are  written  in  what  has  been  called  “ unrhymed 
verse,”  but  it  is  not  really  verse  at  all,  and  has  no 
other  vestige  of  versification  than  the  arbitrary 
division  into  lines  with  a capital  at  the  head  of  each. 
Here  is  a passage  without  the  line  divison.  Blake  is 
speaking  of  “ Beulah  ” — 

“Where  every  female  delights  to  give  her  maiden 
to  her  husband:  the  female  searches  sea  and  land  for 
gratification  of  the  male  genius,  who  in  return  clothes 
her  in  gems  and  gold,  and  feeds  her  with  the  food  of 
Eden.” 

This  has  a certain  rhythm,  but  it  is  distinctly  the 
rhythm  of  what  is  known  as  poetical  prose.  It  has  no 


WILLIAM  BLAKE 


131 


line  structure;  and  any  one  who  does  not  know  the 
original  may  be  defied  to  divide  it  as  Blake  did. 

The  thoughts  conveyed  in  Blake’s  prophetic  books 
are  as  much  the  outcome  of  an  untrained  mind  as  is 
the  poetry  in  which  they  are  conveyed,  but  were  they 
really  valuable  it  would  matter  little.  After  all,  what 
the  world  most  loves  is  art,  and  thought  has  never 
long  saved  a work  not  plastically  beautiful.  To  con- 
sider Blake  as  prophet  and  seer  is  much  like  consider- 
ing Turner  mainly  as  the  author  of  “ The  Fallacies 
of  Hope.”  In  his  art  he  really  attained  to  definite 
expression,  thanks  to  his  hard  training,  and  though  he 
never  was  a painter,  in  any  just  sense  of  the  word,  as 
an  illustrator  in  black  and  white,  whether  of  his  own 
ideas  or  of  the  works  of  others,  he  displayed  un- 
doubted ability.  His  knowledge  of  the  figure  was  far 
from  complete  and  his  anatomy  is  often  impossible^ 
while  his  taste  was  sometimes  faulty  and  his  orna- 
mental flourishings  are  frequently  mean  and  trivial. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  had  a strong  imaginative  sense 
of  the  weird  and  awful,  a feeling  for  grandeur  of  style 
and  an  ability  to  suggest  space  and  movement.  Some 
of  the  “Inventions  to  the  Book  of  Job”  reach  a very 
high  level  of  dignity  and  beauty,  and  are  more 
essentially  large  in  their  small  dimensions  than  many  a 
twenty-foot  canvas  or  fresco.  Due  distance  guarded 
and  allowance  made  for  their  inferior  completeness, 
they  are  almost  worthy  of  comparison  with  Michel- 
angelo, of  whom  they  contain  many  reminiscences. 


132 


WILLIAM  BLAKE 


The  engraving  of  the  morning  stars  singing  together 
is  one  of  the  grandest  designs  in  all  art.  It  should  be 
remarked  as  bearing  on  the  sanity  of  these  works  and 
Blake’s  consciousness  of  rational  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends  in  their  production,  that  he  never  attributed 
their  authorship,  as  he  did  that  of  his  later  poems,  to 
supernatural  inspiration.  The  spirit  of  his  brother 
suggested  the  methods  of  engraving  some  of  his  de- 
signs, and  St.  J oseph  told  him  how  to  mix  his  colours, 
while  “ Flemish  and  Venetian  demons  ” interfered  with 
him ; but  he  never  seems  to  have  doubted  that  the  draw- 
ings were  his  own.  The  visions  posed  for  him,  but 
they  did  not  draw  for  him. 


PART  II 


PAINTING  IN  THE  NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 


Besides  the  inherent  difficulty  of  properly 
estimating  contemporary  work,  there  is  an 
especial  difficulty  in  dealing  with  the  painting 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Art  in  the  past  has  been 
traditional,  national,  and  homogeneous ; art  in  our  day 
has  been  individual,  international,  and  chaotic.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  century  the  so-called  “classical 
revival  ” destroyed  what  remained  of  the  traditions  of 
the  Renaissance,  and  almost  destroyed  the  art  of 
painting  as  such.  When  men  again  began  to  wish 
to  paint,  each  had  to  experiment  for  himself  and  to 
find  what  methods  he  could.  Modem  means  of  com- 
munication and  modem  methods  of  reproduction  have 
brought  the  ends  of  the  earth  together  and  placed 
the  art  of  all  times  and  countries  at  the  disposal  of 
every  artist.  The  quantity  of  painting  produced  has 
been  enormous;  the  number  of  individual  artists  of 
some  distinction  has  been  remarkable;  and  the  suc- 
cession of  “ movements  ” and  revolutions,  each  rapidly 
extending  its  influence  over  the  civilised  world,  has 
been  most  puzzling.  From  this  tangled  skein  it  may, 
however,  be  possible  to  pluck  a few  threads. 

Most  of  the  characteristic  tendencies  of  modem 
painting  have  had  their  origin  or  attained  their  high- 

135 


136  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING 


est  development  m France,  and  France  has  certainly  | 
held  the  primacy  of  art  in  the  past  century,  as  did 
England  in  the  eighteenth,  Holland  and  Flanders  in 
the  seventeenth,  and  Italy  in  the  sixteenth.  The  i 
history  of  modern  painting  is  largely  the  history  of  I 
painting  in  France.  Yet  in  the  first  third  of  the  ! 
century  there  is  really  only  one  name  in  France,  or,  j 
for  that  matter,  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  that 
takes  a very  high  rank.  David  was  a man  of  force, 
but  neither  he  nor  his  followers  were  painters,  and  still  i 
less  were  the  cartoonists  of  Germany;  Prudhon  alone 
was  a really  great  artist.  He  was  deeply  influenced  | 
by  Correggio,  but  he  had  an  individuality  of  his  own,  1 
and,  in  spite  of  the  ruin  wrought  by  bitumen,  his  best  | 
canvases  are  singularly  lovely,  and  of  all  modern  work 
approach  nearest,  perhaps,  to  the  power  of  flesh  paint- 
ing of  the  old  masters.  Later  the  classical  school  pro- 
duced another  artist  of  high  rank,  however  little  of  a 
painter,  in  Ingres.  In  him  the  classical  tradition  was 
profoundly  modified  by  study  of  Raphael.  He  was 
not  a great  draughtsman  in  the  sense  of  mastery  of 
significant  form,  but  he  had  rare  feeling  for  beauty  of 
line.  His  drawings  are  exquisite,  and  a few  of  his 
portraits  will  prove  immortal.  His  contemporary, 
Delacroix,  was  the  head  of  the  romantic  revolution. 
Delacroix  was  a man  of  great  intellectual  power,  but 
hardly  an  altogether  successful  painter.  What  he  did 
was  to  break  down  the  classical  tradition  and  make 
room  for  modern  art  rather  than  himself  create  it.  He 


prudhon:  ‘^‘^l^’enleyement  de  psyche 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING  137 


and  his  contemporaries  were  greatly  influenced  by 
English  painting,  and  in  the  first  third  of  the  century 
English  painting  was  still  the  most  vital  in  Europe. 
Affected  as  are  the  works  of  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence, 
he  was  still  a continuer  of  the  traditions  of  Reynolds 
and  Gainsborough,  and,  through  them,  of  Van  Dyck 
and  Rubens.  England  was  the  latest  country  to  be 
reached  by  the  Renaissance,  and  the  country  that 
longest  retained  the  traditions  of  painting;  and  in 
England  the  classical  school  had  hardly  existed. 
When  painting  began  to  revive,  it  was  first  to  Eng- 
land and  then  to  Rubens  that  it  turned  for  its  ex- 
amples. 

The  greatest  achievement  of  painting  in  the  past 
century  is  the  creation  of  modem  landscape ; and  the 
most  singular  phenomenon,  as  Fromentin  pointed  out 
long  ago,  is  the  extension  of  the  methods  of  the  land- 
scape painter  to  other  branches  of  art.  Now,  the 
history  of  modern  landscape  begins  in  England. 
Turner  cannot  be  neglected;  he  was  indubitably  a 
powerful  and  original  genius.  But  he  stands  alone. 
It  was  Constable,  the  inheritor  of  the  tradition  of 
Gainsborough  and  of  Rubens,  who  first  stimulated  the 
study  of  landscape  in  France.  It  was  in  France  that 
under  this  stimulus  grew  up  a school  of  painters  of 
landscape,  and  of  figures  and  animals  in  their  relation 
to  landscape, — the  so-called  “ Barbizon  School,” — 
which  produced  the  art  of  the  century  that  most 
nearly  equals  the  great  art  of  the  past.  If  any 


138  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING 


painters  of  our  day  are  to  be  ranked  as  indubitable 
masters,  these  painters  are  certainly  Millet,  Corot, 
Rousseau,  and  Troyon.  The  others  commonly  named 
with  them  are  so  inferior  to  them  that  they  need 
not  here  be  separately  considered.  Rousseau’s  art  is 
founded  on  Rubens  and  the  Dutch,  Corot’s  on  Claude. 
What  they  added  was  a profound  study  of  nature,  and 
particularly  of  natural  light  and  what  painters  call 
“ values.”  Rousseau  is  naturalistic  and  rugged,  while 
Corot  is  lyric.  His  best  landscapes  are  perhaps  the 
most  delicately  poetical  and  beautiful  ever  produced. 
In  a landscape  almost  as  fine  as  theirs  Troyon  placed 
cattle  and  Millet  the  rustic  man.  How  wonderful  as 
a pure  landscapist  Millet  was  is  perhaps  hardly  under- 
stood. His  peculiar  distinction  is  that  he  was  the  first 
painter  to  study  man  in  nature,  and  to  give  the 
relation  of  the  figure  to  its  surroundings.  But 
besides  this  modern  quality  he  had  in  large  meas- 
ure the  qualities  of  all  great  art.  He  was  a master 
of  simple  and  dignified  composition,  a noble  colourist, 
and  the  greatest  master  of  drawing  as  expressive  of 
the  action  of  the  human  figure  since  Michelangelo. 
Perhaps  no  other  master,  certainly  no  other  modern 
master,  has  shown  such  capacity  to  express  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  a movement  and  to  resume  it  in  a 
permanent  type — to  paint  The  Sower,  not  a sower. 

The  successors  of  the  Barbizon  School  were  those 
who  have  been  called  the  “ Impressionists.”  With 
them  the  study  of  light  and  the  painting  of  every- 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING  139 


thing  as  if  it  were  landscape  reached  its  extreme. 
Composition,  drawing,  even  colour  for  its  own  sake, 
were  more  and  more  neglected,  while  the  analysis  of 
light  became  the  one  essential,  and  the  relations  of 
things  seemed  vastly  more  important  than  the  things 
themselves.  Manet,  who  is  generally  considered  the 
founder  of  this  school,  did  not  really  carry  its  peculiar 
manner  very  far.  He  began  with  a rather  unsuccess- 
ful attempt  to  paint  like  Velasquez;  in  his  last  days 
he  was  influenced  by  younger  men  and  attempted  some- 
thing like  the  parti-coloured  manner  of  Monet,  but 
his  most  characteristic  work  is  blackish  in  colour,  flat, 
and  with  heavy  outlines.  He  had,  however,  a genius 
for  the  beautiful  handling  of  oil  paint  as  a material. 
More  or  less  associated  with  the  school  was  an  original 
painter  of  considerable  power.  Degas,  but  its  most 
influential  exponent  is  Claude  Monet.  It  is  he  who 
has  carried  farthest  the  experiment  of  dissecting 
and  recombining  the  solar  spectrum  and  of  producing 
light  by  “ ocular  mixture  ” of  colours.  The  per- 
manent influence  of  the  school  will  probably  not  be 
very  great.  It  will  have  somewhat  broadened  the 
aims  and  enriched  the  palettes  of  other  painters ; but 
its  neglects  were  too  many,  and  it  was  bound  to  be 
succeeded  by  an  art  that  should  again  take  up  the 
study  of  beauty,  of  composition,  of  form,  and  of 
decorative  colour. 

The  great  bulk  of  French  painting  has  always  been 
and  still  remains  academic.  The  officially  recognised 


140  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING 


painters  of  France — ^the  medallists  and  members  of  the 
Institute — are  generally  men  of  the  schools,  trained 
in  draughtsmanship,  feeble  in  colour,  conventional 
in  composition.  Some  of  them  have  attained  great 
power  and  distinction,  notably  Gerome,  Meissonier, 
Elie  Delaunay  in  his  wonderful  portraits,  and  Baudry 
(who,  however,  belongs  rather  with  the  decorators)  ; 
but  they  have  added  little  that  was  new  to  art.  Their 
output  and  that  of  their  followers  has  been  much  modi- 
fied by  two  influences:  that  of  the  great  modern  ex- 
hibitions and  that  of  photography.  The  ‘‘exhibi- 
tion” is  distinctly  modern — a child  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  From  putting  into  museums  those  things 
of  beauty  which  had  outlived  their  original  purpose 
we  have  come  to  make  things  especially  for  museums 
and  to  get  together  temporary  museums  each  year  for 
their  exhibition.  Hence  the  gallery  picture  and  the 
machine  du  Salon.  The  Barbizon  men  were  often  kept 
out  of  the  Salon  and  the  Salon  had  not  in  their  time 
reached  its  present  proportions.  The  Impressionists 
have  largely  kept  themselves  out.  For  those  who  have 
regularly  participated  in  the  annual  exhibitions,  the 
desire  to  be  seen  in  the  crowd  has  resulted  in  a steady 
increase  in  the  size  of  canvases,  with  no  justification 
in  subject  or  decorative  intention;  in  constantly  grow- 
ing sensationalism  of  sub j ect ; and,  finally,  in  all  sorts 
of  fads  and  technical  extremes. 

There  have  always  been  naturalists  in  painting,  but 
photography  has  shown  us,  as  nothing  else  ever  could. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING  141 


what  nature  is  actually  like.  Almost  with  the  in- 
vention of  photography  came  the  Preraphaelite  move- 
ment in  England,  a short-lived  attempt  to  abandon  all 
artistic  conventions  and  to  substitute  for  them  the 
painstaking  and  accurate  portraiture  of  natural  fact. 
A similar  ideal  attained  more  nearly  its  realisation  in 
France  at  a much  later  date.  With  Bastien-Lepage, 
the  tendency  to  consider  man  as  a part  of  landscape 
and  the  tendency  to  minute  naturalism  were  combined. 
The  model  was  posed  out  of  doors,  and  both  the  figure 
and  its  surroundings  patiently  studied  and  realised. 
All  fleeting  effects  had  to  be  abandoned  in  favour  of 
the  gray  daylight  that  alone  permits  long  study  in  the 
open  air,  and  composition,  style  in  drawing,  and  even 
beauty  were  sacrificed  to  fidelity.  At  his  best  the 
result  was  amazingly  like  the  still  unrealised  photog- 
raphy in  colours.  Some  of  his  portraits  and  pic- 
tures are  masterpieces  in  their  own  way,  and  before  his 
death  he  did  some  beautiful  landscapes.  With  the 
general  mass  of  painters  the  influence  of  photography 
has  been  almost  wholly  for  evil,  and  its  result  a dead 
level  of  commonplace. 

Outside  of  all  the  schools  there  have  been,  mean- 
while, here  and  there,  independent  artists  who  have, 
each  in  his  own  way,  kept  alive  this  or  that  quality  of 
more  ancient  art.  Rossetti,  more  poet  than  painter, 
soon  abandoned  Preraphaelitism  for  a decorative 
formula  and  the  study  of  colour  and  sentiment.  His 
friend  and  pupil,  Burne-Jones,  modified  whfle  he 


142  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING 


carried  on  the  Rossettian  tradition,  and  he  and  his 
numerous  followers  have  been,  in  our  day,  the 
especial  champions  of  the  Florentine  ideal  of  decorative 
line.  Beside  them  but  apart  from  them,  and  tracing 
his  inspiration  to  the  Venetians,  was  George  Frederick 
Watts.  In  spite  of  uncertain  draughtsmanship  and  a 
fumbling  technique,  his  dignity  of  composition,  eleva- 
tion of  feeling,  and  occasionally  grave  splendour  of 
colour  raise  him  to  a rather  lonely  height  among  nine- 
teenth century  painters,  and  he  more  often  reminds 
one  of  the  great  old  masters  than  any  other  modern. 
Gustave  Moreau  was  a sort  of  French  Rossetti,  en- 
veloping a purely  personal  sentiment  in  a form  unlike 
any  other,  while  in  Germany  the  profoundly  original 
and  imaginative  genius  of  Boeckhn  has  kept  up  the 
protest  against  mere  realism. 

In  these  men,  and  in  others  their  contemporaries, 
the  various  elements  of  painting  as  an  art — imagina- 
tion of  subject,  beauty  of  drawing,  intricacy  of  pat- 
tern, richness  of  colour,  gravity  and  simplicity  of  tone, 
even  brilliancy  of  handling  and  the  manipulation  of 
material — ^have  had  their  exponents.  But  perhaps  the 
most  characteristic  phase  of  the  art  of  the  end  of  the 
century,  in  its  reaction  against  naturalism,  has  been 
the  revival  of  pure  decoration.  In  England  this  has 
led  to  the  arts-and-crafts  movement,  with  its  somewhat 
eccentric  mediaevalism,  and  it  has  had  its  somewhat 
comic  phase  throughout  the  civilised  world  in  the 
poster  mania.  Its  more  serious  results  have  been 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING  143 


mainly  confined  to  France  and  the  United  States. 
In  France  the  decorative  tradition  was  never  quite  lost, 
and  it  was  revived  in  its  fullest  splendour  by  Paul 
Baudry  in  his  paintings  for  the  foyer  of  the  Paris 
Opera  House.  As  a master  of  significant  form,  Bau- 
dry was  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  moderns,  and  he  was 
a charming  colourist  also,  but  he  was  pre-eminently 
a master  of  decorative  composition,  and,  as  a vast 
scheme  of  ordered  line  and  space  for  the  decoration  of 
a public  building,  his  great  work  is  perhaps  the  most 
notable  achievement  since  the  Renaissance.  His  rep- 
utation has  suffered  some  eclipse  in  these  later  days, 
but  it  is  safe  to  predict  that  it  will,  sooner  or  later, 
shine  forth  again;  and  it  will  be  seen  that  he  was 
none  the  less  a great  artist  for  that  academic  training 
which  it  has  been  something  too  much  the  fashion  to 
decry. 

Indisputably,  however,  the  most  influential  master 
of  decorative  painting  in  the  latter  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  has  been  Puvis  de  Chavannes.  In  him, 
to  a noble  simplicity  and  a great  feeling  for  composi- 
tion, rather  in  spaces  than  lines,  has  been  added  a 
strong  sense  of  landscape  and  a mastery  of  light  and 
values,  so  that  his  work,  while  as  “ mural  ” as  Giotto’s, 
is  as  modern  as  Monet’s.  Originally  a very  fair 
academic  draughtsman,  he  came  more  and  more  to 
sacrifice  form  and  detail  to  monumental  gravity  and 
breadth  of  treatment,  until  his  work,  always  austere, 
reached  at  last  perilously  near  to  the  verge  of  empti- 


144  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING 


ness  and  lack  of  interest.  It  is  always  saved  by  deco- 
rative fitness  and  by  great  beauty  of  tone  and  quiet 
colour.  In  our  day  France  has  produced  much  bad 
decoration  as  well  as  some  good,  but  in  the  Hemicycle 
of  the  Sorbonne  it  has  left  to  future  ages  an  undoubted 
masterpiece. 

America’s  serious  contribution  to  the  art  of  the 
world  has  been  made  mainly  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
century.  Our  earliest  painters  were  entirely  British 
in  training,  and  some  of  them  became  British  in 
nationality  as  well.  Stuart,  Copley,  West,  and  Allston 
are  merely  second-rate  painters  of  the  English  school. 
The  influence  of  France  first  made  itself  felt  in  Hunt, 
who  was  a pupil  of  Couture  and  greatly  influenced 
by  Millet.  He  was  a man  of  powerful  personality, 
but  what  he  has  left  behind  him  is  extremely  frag- 
mentary. His  contemporary,  George  Fuller,  was  a 
self-educated  genius  who,  in  spite  of  an  insufficient 
training,  and  through  a strange  technique,  gave 
glimpses  of  a valid  talent.  These  are  the  names  of 
greatest  importance  until  the  awakening  caused  by 
the  Centennial  Exposition  of  1876  and  the  return  to 
this  country  shortly  thereafter  of  the  American  stu- 
dents from  Paris  and  Munich  studios.  The  work  of 
these  younger  men  was,  for  some  time,  reflective  of 
that  of  their  foreign  masters,  and  American  exhibi- 
tions showed  in  succession  the  latest  fashions  of 
foreign  work.  The  International  Exposition  of  1900 
for  the  first  time  triumphantly  demonstrated  to  the 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING  145 


world  that  a real  American  school  exists,  and  that  it  is 
certainly  second  only  to  the  French. 

Yet  of  the  artists  whose  work  makes  up  this  show- 
ing the  two  most  distinguished  are  men  to  whom  Amer- 
ica can  make  but  slight  and  doubtful  claim.  The 
name  of  Whistler  belongs  to  the  history  of  art  at 
large  rather  than  to  that  of  art  in  America.  A con- 
temporary of  Manet  and  an  exhibitor  with  him  in  the 
famous  Salon  des  Refuses  of  1863,  he  never  returned 
to  America,  but  lived  in  Paris  or  London,  surviving 
long  enough  to  see  work  which  was  at  first  laughed  at 
finally  accepted  as  among  the  most  accomplished  of 
the  century.  Always  intensely  individual,  hardly  a 
draughtsman  or  a colourist,  and  least  of  all  a natural- 
ist, he  devoted  his  art  to  refinements  of  tone  and  deli- 
cate division  of  space.  His  work  is  now  as  indiscrim- 
inately praised  as  it  was  formerly  attacked,  but  his 
best  things  have  an  abiding  charm,  and  he  is  to-day 
one  of  the  most  widely  influential  of  modern  painters. 
John  Sargent  is  even  less  American  than  Whistler,  for, 
though  of  American  parentage,  he  was  born  abroad 
and  his  training  was,  as  his  art  remains,  wholly  French. 
His  sense  of  colour  is,  like  that  of  most  French 
painters,  rather  mediocre,  and  beauty  of  tone  is  not 
especially  his  province.  His  distinctive  qualities  are 
a profound  mastery  of  drawing,  as  expressed  by 
planes  rather  than  by  lines,  and  a wonderful  manual 
dexterity.  These  two  qualities,  in  combination,  have 
made  him  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  modem  tech- 


146  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING 


nicians,  and,  added  to  them,  a strong  sense  of  char- 
acter has  made  him  perhaps  the  first  of  living  portrait 
painters. 

No  other  of  the  many  able  and  clever  Americans 
residing  abroad  has  reached  the  degree  of  distinction 
attained  by  these  two,  nor  has  any  of  them,  unless  it  be 
Mr.  Vedder,  given  any  distinctively  national  or  per- 
sonal note.  It  has  been  otherwise  with  painters  who 
have  either  remained  at  home,  or,  once  their  appren- 
ticeship finished,  have  returned  to  this  country  and 
have  been  forced  to  rely  upon  themselves.  Two 
Americans,  Inness  and  Wyant,  will  surely  take  high 
rank  among  the  landscape  painters  of  the  century ; 
the  first  a master  of  passionate  and  powerful  colour, 
the  second  a gentler  and  more  delicate  nature;  both 
were  influenced  by  the  men  of  Barbizon,  yet  each 
struck  a note  of  his  own,  and  each  had  something 
national  as  well  as  personal  to  add  to  the  art  of  the 
world.  With  the  landscape  painters  also  may  most 
conveniently  be  classed  one  more  intensely  American 
than  either  of  these,  Winslow  Homer.  Possessing 
no  foreign  training,  showing  no  foreign  influence, 
always  himself,  Homer  has  steadily  pursued  his  way, 
attaining  year  by  year  more  nearly  to  his  own  ideal. 
His  drawing  is  not  always  sure,  his  colouring  is 
rather  neutral,  his  handling  is  never  brilliant,  but  a 
strong  personality  marks  everything  he  does,  and 
figure  or  landscape  is  seen  with  a true  artist’s  vision. 
No  marines  ever  painted  give  a greater  sense  of  the 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING  L47 


weight  and  power  of  water  than  do  his,  and  he  has 
painted  some  figure-pieces  of  marvellous  vigour. 
After  these  came  a whole  school  of  younger  men  who 
have  absorbed  the  training  of  Europe  and  have  felt 
all  contemporary  influences,  but  whose  work  in  ac- 
cent, as  in  subject,  remains  American,  and  who  are 
to-day  the  most  vital  landscape  painters  in  the  world. 
Among  them  may  be  specially  mentioned  D.  W.  Tryon 
and  Horatio  Walker,  the  first  more  influenced  by 
French  methods,  the  second  by  Dutch,  but  each  an 
individual  artist  of  great  force. 

That  America  has  something  to  say  in  figure  paint- 
ing as  well  as  in  landscape  is  evident  when  one  thinks 
of  the  exquisite  sentiment  of  Thayer,  the  scholarly 
and  clean-cut  drawing  of  Brush,  the  delicate  charm 
of  Dewing,  and  the  brilliant  craftsmanship  of  Chase. 
In  the  work  of  these  men  and  their  fellows  there  is  a 
sincerity,  a scorn  of  sensationalism,  a true  pursuit  of 
art  for  its  own  sake,  that  are  rare  in  the  painting  of 
to-day.  Finally,  America  has  done  and  is  doing  some- 
thing interesting  and  valuable  in  pure  decoration. 
Years  ago  John  La  Farge,  whose  work  in  stained 
glass  is  as  new  in  kind  as  it  is  supreme  in  merit,  so 
that  he  may  almost  be  called  the  inventor  of  a new 
art,  did  some  admirable  painting  in  Trinity  Church, 
Boston,  as  he  has  since  done  in  other  places.  After 
that,  little  was  attempted  until  the  Chicago  World’s 
Fair  of  1893  gave  an  opportunity  to  several  of  our 
painters  to  show  what  they  could  do  in  that  line. 


148  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  PAINTING 


Since  then  one  public  building  after  another  has  been 
decorated  with  paintings,  and  the  results  are  familiar 
to  us  all.  Such  men  as  Simmons,  Blashfield,  Mow- 
bray, and  H.  O.  Walker  have  each  developed  a decora- 
tive style  of  his  own,  while  they  have  managed  to  work 
together  and  to  preserve  the  general  harmony  of  a 
great  decorative  scheme  in  a way  which  contrasts 
most  favourably  with  the  decoration  of  such  foreign 
buildings  as  the  Paris  hotel  de  ville  or  the  Pantheon. 
If  we  have  produced  no  single  work  of  the  value  of 
some  of  those  by  Baudry  or  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  yet 
our  mural  painting  has  been  marked  by  reticence, 
dignity,  and  true  decorative  spirit. 

Since  the  wave  of  the  Renaissance  first  started  from 
Italy,  the  country  last  reached  by  it  has  been  the  coun- 
try that  at  any  time  has  produced  the  best  art.  The 
wave  has  barely  reached  us,  and  it  is  not  impossible 
that  it  is  to  America  we  must  look  for  the  best  art  of 
the  twentieth  century. 


FORD  MADOX  BROWN  AND 
PRERAPHAELITISM 


WHEN  the  definitive  history  of  that  artis- 
tic movement  known  as  Preraphaelitism 
comes  to  be  written,  a very  large  place 
in  it  will  be  given  to  a never  very  celebrated  or  very 
successful  artist  who  died,  almost  in  obscurity,  on 
October  6,  1893.  Whether  or  not  Ford  Madox 
Brown  may  properly  be  considered  the  true  founder 
of  Preraphaelitism,  his  grandson.  Ford  Madox 
Hueffer,  is  amply  justified  by  the  facts  in  calling 
him  its  precursor.  An  older  man  than  any  of  the 
“brothers,”  the  chosen  master  of  Rossetti,  and  the 
adviser  (if  not  strictly  the  master)  of  Hunt,  his 
influence  upon  these  young  men  must  have  been 
great.  He  never  joined  the  Brotherhood  himself, 
and  several  reasons  have  been  given  for  it.  There 
is  even  a contradiction  of  memory  as  to  whether  he 
was  ever  asked  to  do  so.  A comparison  of  the  state- 
ments of  Brown  himself,  of  Holman  Hunt,  and  of 
others  would  seem  to  show  that  if  he  was  not  for- 
mally asked,  it  was  because  he  did  not  care  to  be, 
and  that  the  obstacle  was  simply  his  greater  age 
and  experience,  which  rendered  him  somewhat  less 
enthusiastic  than  his  young  friends,  and  gave  him  a 

149 


150 


FORD  MADOX  BROWN 


distrust  of  brotherhoods  and  formal  associations  as 
leading  to  “cliquishness.”  In  his  art  he  was  for 
many  years  more  Preraphaelite  than  almost  any  of 
the  Brotherhood,  and  he  remained  a Preraphaelite 
longer  than  any  of  them,  except  Holman  Hunt,  who 
has  never  changed. 

Ford  Madox  Brown  was  bom  in  Calais  in  the  year 
1821,  the  son  of  a retired  purser  of  the  British  Navy, 
who  resided  abroad  for  reasons  of  economy.  He 
early  showed  artistic  tastes,  and  began  the  formal 
study  of  painting  as  a pupil  of  Gregorius  of  Bruges 
at  the  age  of  fourteen.  In  1838  he  became  a pupil 
of  Wappers  at  Antwerp,  and  it  was  the  knowledge 
then  acquired  that  gave  him  prestige,  when  he  went 
to  England,  as  a technician  and  as  one  who  “ was  up 
in  the  Belgian  School.”  On  just  how  much  techni- 
cal achievement  this  reputation  was  based  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  one  to  say  who  has  not  seen  his  earlier  works. 
His  methods  were  so  revolutionised  afterwards  that 
his  early  training  in  painting  went  for  notliing. 
Such  of  his  drawings  as  have  been  reproduced  are 
almost  incredibly  feeble  in  handling.  How  he  learned 
to  paint  may  be  well  understood  from  his  own  words: 

“Those  were  the  days,”  he  says,  “when  my  re- 
spected master,  the  late  Baron  Wappers,  having 
been  commissioned  by  his  Government  to  paint  the 
‘Belgian  Revolution,’  had,  for  speed’s  sake,  two  of 
his  pupils,  whose  duty  it  was  to  smear  in  with  their 
hands,  early  in  the  morning,  as  much  asphaltum  as 


AND  PRERAPHAELITISM 


151 


he  could  afterwards  cover  in  with  revolutionary 
heroes  during  the  remainder  of  the  long  summer 
day.  . . . These  were  the  days  when  Wilkie’s  best 
works  were  coated  with  asphaltum,  which  has  since 
made  fissures  all  over  them;  when  Hilton’s  Sabrina 
was  so  flooded  with  it  that  it  now  has  to  be  hung 
alternately  right  side  and  wrong  side  upwards  to 
prevent  the  figures  from  entirely  running  to  the 
top  or  bottom  of  the  picture.” 

In  1840  Brown  went  to  Paris  and  spent  four  or 
five  years  there.  He  went  into  no  school,  but  worked 
for  and  by  himself.  At  this  time  Delaroche  was  the 
recognised  head  of  the  French  school,  and  his  style 
seems  to  have  influenced  the  young  Englishman  in 
the  choice  of  subject  and  general  manner  of  treat- 
ment of  such  pictures  as  the  “Mary  Queen  of  Scots 
going  to  Execution,”  which  was  painted  at  this  time. 
There  seems  to  be  no  evidence  that  he  was  influenced 
by  Delacroix  and  the  colourists,  or  that  he  ever  heard 
of  the  great  landscape  school  that  was  then  growing 
up  in  France  under  the  influence  of  his  countryman. 
Constable.  It  seems  to  have  been  entirely  of  his  own 
motion,  and  without  knowing  anything  of  parallel 
attempts,  that  he  then  made  his  first  efforts  at  realis- 
tic lighting,  and  tried,  in  his  “Manfred,”  to  paint 
figures  in  the  open  air  as  they  would  really  look.  He 
was  not  successful  and  soon  began  to  “study  Rem- 
brandt ” and  went  back  to  his  bitumen.  In  1840 
he  paid  his  first  short  visit  to  England,  and  met  the 


152 


FORD  MADOX  BROWN 


young  lady  who  became  his  first  wife  and  who  died 
in  1845.  In  1844  there  was  another  short  visit  to 
England,  and  the  exhibition  at  Westminster  Hall  of 
his  cartoons  of  “ Harold,”  “ Adam  and  Eve,”  and  the 
“Spirit  of  Justice,”  which  seem  to  have  impressed  no 
one  but  Haydon,  who,  if  a bad  artist,  was  sometimes 
a good  critic.  It  was  the  failing  health  of  his  wife 
which  led  to  the  voyage  to  Italy  that  was  the  turning- 
point  in  Madox  Brown’s  career.  Three  important 
things  happened  during  this  voyage.  First,  he  saw 
the  Holbeins  at  Basle,  and  was  deeply  impressed  by 
their  unshrinking  and  absolute  realism;  second,  he 
met  in  Rome  the  “Nazarenes,”  Cornelius  and  Over- 
beck, and  his  attention  was  drawn  to  their  mediseval- 
ising  theories  and  their  use  of  the  term  Preraphaelite ; 
third,  he  saw  the  work  of  the  early  Italian  painters. 
The  results  of  these  influences  were  shown  almost  im- 
mediately on  his  return  to  England,  where,  his  wife 
having  died  in  Paris  on  the  way  home,  he  settled  in 
1845. 

W.  Bell  Scott  has  given  us  a picture  of  the  state 
of  art  in  England  shortly  before  Brown’s  arrival. 
When,  in  the  spring  of  1837,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
five,  he  broke  away  from  his  father’s  engraving  busi- 
ness in  Edinburgh  and  went  up  to  London,  “ a shy 
youth  with  poetry  in  his  pocket  and  little  knowledge 
of  the  world  and  himself,”  the  younger  men  who  were 
kept  out  of  the  Academy  and  were  constantly  attempt- 
ing to  start  an  opposition  exhibition  were  such  as 


AND  PRERAPHAELITISM 


153 


Frith,  and  others  whose  names  are  less  known.  East- 
lake  was  President  of  the  Royal  Academy.  Turner 
was  “the  joke  of  the  public,”  Constable  “near  his 
end  and  never  a favourite,”  and  Etty  and  Maclise 
were  about  the  best  of  the  artists.  There  was  little 
chance  to  exhibit,  little  patronage,  and  less  interest 
in  art.  Landscape-painting  was  “ below  zero,” 
and  figure-painting  was  largely  confined  to  the 
illustration  in  paint  of  popular  novels,  such  as 
“ Don  Quixote  ” and  “ Gil  Bias.”  It  was  the  period 
of  the  Annuals,  and  the  Book  of  Beauty  style  of 
work  was  all  that  was  wanted.  Kenny  Meadows  had 
done  two  drawings  for  Heath’s  Annual,  represent- 
ing Anne  Page  and  her  mother,  and  Heath  insisted 
that  Mrs.  Page  should  be  as  young  as  her  daughter: 
“I  don’t  care  about  her  maternity,  or  Shakspere, 
or  anything  else.  You  must  not  make  her  more  than 
twenty,  or  nobody  will  buy!  If  you  won’t,  I must 
get  Frank  Stone  to  do  her  instead.  All  Frank  Stone’s 
beauties  are  nineteen  exactly,  and  that’s  the  age  for 
me.” 

It  was  to  such  artistic  surroundings  that  Brown 
came,  and  among  them  that  he  began  to  develop  his 
new  ideas. 

The  “Chaucer  at  the  Court  of  Edward  III.,” 
begun  in  Rome,  was  not  finished  until  1851,  but  in 
1846  he  painted  his  “Portrait  of  Mr.  Bamford”  and 
in  1847  his  “Wycliffe  Reading  his  Translation  of 
the  Bible  to  John  of  Gaunt.”  His  own  account  of 


154. 


FORD  MADOX  BROWN 


the  portrait  may  be  quoted  in  full  as  showing  better 
than  could  anything  else  the  temper  in  which  it  was 
undertaken.  The  italics  would  seem  to  be  the  artist’s 
own: 

“ It  is,”  he  says,  “ the  first  evidence  of  an  entirely 
new  direction  of  thought  and  feeling  on  my  part. 
. . . To  those  who  value  facile  completeness  and 
handling  above  painstaking  research  into  nature,  the 
change  must  appear  inexplicable  and  provoking. 
Even  to  myself,  at  this  distance  of  time,  this  instinct- 
ive turning  hack  to  get  around  by  another  road  seems 
remarkable.  But  in  reality  it  was  only  the  inevita- 
ble result  of  the  want  of  principle,  or  rather  conflic- 
tion  of  many  jarring  principles,  under  which  the 
student  had  to  begin  in  those  days.  Wishing  to 
substitute  simple  imitation  for  scenic  effectiveness, 
and  purity  of  natural  colour  for  scholastic  depth  of 
tone,  I found  no  better  way  of  doing  so  than  to  paint 
what  I called  a Holbein  of  the  nineteenth  century,  I 
might  perhaps  have  done  so  more  effectively,  but 
stepping  backwards  is  stumbling  work  at  best.” 

It  would  be  hard  to  express  more  explicitly  the 
essential  doctrines  of  Preraphaelitism  than  is  here 
done.  “ Simple  imitation  ” and  “ purity  of  natural 
colour”  (i.  e,,  crudeness  and  brightness)  were  its 
great  aims,  and  were  first  formulated  by  a man  who 
was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a foreigner,  newly 
landed  in  London,  and  who  knew  not  Ruskin.  The 
other  great  mark  of  the  movement,  its  mediasvalising 


AND  PRERAPHAELITISM 


156 


tendency  and  the  worship  of  the  early  Italian  paint- 
ers, is  shown  with  equal  clearness  in  the  “Wycliffe.” 
Here  we  have  a composition  arranged  under  a pointed 
arch,  the  principal  figure  bolt  upright  and  squarely 
facing  the  spectator  in  the  exact  middle  of  the  can- 
vas, and  supported  by  subordinate  groups  to  right 
and  left;  a diffused  light  with  no  dark  shadow  any- 
where, the  figures  being  relieved  against  a distant 
landscape  and  pale  clear  sky;  closely  studied  mediae- 
val costume;  and  heads  evidently  copied  directly  from 
nature.  If  this  is  not  a Preraphaelite  picture,  it  is 
certainly  very  near  it,  and  it  was  the  exhibition  of 
this  picture  which  called  out  the  celebrated  letter 
from  Rossetti  asking  to  become  Madox  Brown’s 
pupil.  It  is  worth  noting  in  passing  that  the  letter 
was  signed  “ Gabriel  C.  Rossetti,”  Rossetti  not 
having  as  yet  adopted  the  Dante  which  afterwards 
figured  in  his  signature.  It  was  in  Madox  Brown’s 
studio  that  Rossetti  was  set  at  the  accurate  copying 
of  still  life,  which  he  did  not  at  all  like,  and  it  was 
to  Madox  Brown  that  he  came,  in  1848,  “laughing, 
or  at  least  more  or  less  joking,  about  some  discovery 
of  Hunt’s.  It  turned  out  that  they  were  the  repro- 
ductions of  Orcagna’s  frescoes  at  Pisa. 

“ . , . . I told  him  it  was  all  nonsense  to  laugh 

at  them — they  were  the  finest  things  in  the  world, 
and  he’d  far  better  go  and  look  at  them  again ; and, 
of  course,  he  said  just  what  I did  after  he’d  thought 
about  it. 


156 


FORD  MADOX  BROWN 


“ As  to  the  name  Preraphaelite,  when  they  began 
talking  about  the  early  Italian  masters,  I naturally 
told  them  of  the  German  P.  R.’s,  and  either  it  pleased 
them  or  not,  I don’t  know,  but  they  took  it.” 

So  was  the  Brotherhood  founded,  and  the  only 
reason  given  by  Hunt  for  Brown’s  never  having  been 
formally  invited  to  become  a member,  besides  his  age 
and  the  unpopularity  of  his  works  ( !),  is  “that  his 
works  had  none  of  the  minute  rendering  of  natural 
objects  that  the  P.  R.’s,  as  young  men,  had  deter- 
mined should  distinguish  their  works.” 

Scott  tells  us  how  he  met  Rossetti  and  Hunt  about 
this  time.  It  was  in  Holman  Hunt’s  first  studio  in 
Cleveland  Street,  where  these  two  were  working  at 
their  first  Preraphaelite  pictures — those  which,  with 
Millais’s  “ Supper  at  the  House  of  Isabella,”  were  to 
make  known  the  new  doctrine,  and  familiarise  the 
public  with  the  three  mystic  letters.  The  scene  is 
most  characteristic.  Rossetti’s  picture  was  “ The 
Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin,”  and  he  was  painting  it 
“in  oils  with  water-colour  brushes,  as  thinly  as  in 
water-colour,  on  canvas  which  he  had  primed  with 
white  till  the  surface  was  as  smooth  as  cardboard, 
and  every  tint  remained  transparent.”  Hunt  was 
working  at  his  “ Rienzi,”  and  Scott  “ was  made  to 
observe  that  the  chain  mail  in  his  picture  was  articu- 
lated perfectly,  and  as  an  armourer  would  construct 
it,  every  ring  holding  four  other  rings  in  its  grasp 
— a miracle  of  elaboration.”  He  had  even  “ intro- 


AND  PRERAPHAELITISM 


157 


duced  a fly,  as  we  see  done  in  some  early  Flemish 
portraits,  to  show  how  minute  the  artist’s  hand  could 
go.” 

From  this  one  glimpse  into  the  Cleveland  Street 
studio  almost  the  whole  history  of  the  Brother- 
hood may  be  divined.  The  intellectual  influence  of 
Millais,  the  third  of  the  original  trio,  seems  to  have 
been  nil,  and  his  role  was  that  of  the  clever  executant 
and  populariser  of  the  movement.  Rossetti  plus 
Hunt  is  the  formula  of  Preraphaelitism.  The  four 
other  “ brothers  ” may  be  neglected  altogether.  The 
only  one  of  them  who  ever  did  anything  in  art  was 
Woolner  the  sculptor,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  que 
diahle  allait-il  faire  dans  cette  galere.  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  the  real  originators  of  the  movement  ever  had 
any  such  clearly  formulated  body  of  doctrine  as 
Ruskin  afterwards  attributed  to  them;  but  the  ten- 
dencies of  their  work  are  clearly  attributable  to  the 
two  personalities  of  Rossetti  and  Hunt  influenced  by 
Brown  and  working  upon  each  other  and  upon 
Millais.  Three  men  more  fundamentally  unlike  it 
would  be  difficult  to  imagine.  Hunt  was  the  man  of 
iron  will  and  indomitable  perseverance,  with  little 
natural  talent,  making  his  way  against  all  sorts  of 
difficulties  by  dint  of  determination  and  unremitting 
labour;  religious  and  somewhat  sombre  of  temper,  a 
realist  by  nature,  and  too  narrow  of  vision  and  limited 
of  education  to  find  realisation  in  anything  but  the 
minute  pursuit  of  actual  fact  without  regard  to  visual 


158 


FORD  MADOX  BROWN 


truth  of  aspect.  Rossetti  was  the  brilliant,  flighty, 
poetic  nature,  utterly  intolerant  of  continuous  effort, 
unable  to  acquire  any  serious  training,  and  to  the 
end  an  amateur  of  genius;  thoroughly  egotistic,  but 
possessed  of  great  personal  fascination  and  influence 
over  others,  a spoiled  child;  without  deep  religious 
feeling,  but  fascinated  by  mediaevalism  and  “the  Art 
Catholic  ” from  the  purely  picturesque  and  aesthetic 
point  of  view.  Millais  was  the  brilliant  executant, 
the  “ crack  student  ” of  the  Royal  Academy,  hand- 
some, easy,  good-natured,  destined  from  the  begin- 
ning to  worldly  success,  only  temporarily  influenced 
by  the  other  two  and  sure  to  break  away  from  that 
influence  very  soon. 

From  Hunt’s  uncompromising  realism,  added  to 
Rossetti’s  choice  of  subject,  sprang  Preraphaelitism 
as  we  know  it.  It  is  not  by  accident  that,  in  illus- 
trating the  doctrine,  it  is  to  Hunt’s  pictures  that 
Ruskin  constantly  recurs,  for  he  was  the  real  exemp- 
lar of  the  doctrine,  and  remains  to-day  the  one  true 
Preraphaelite  painter.  Absolute  fidelity  to  fact, 
plain  literalness  of  conception,  scorn  of  prettiness 
and  composition,  endless  painstaking  and  thorough 
realisation  of  detail — these  things,  which  constituted 
Preraphaelitism  as  Ruskin  understood  it,  were  Hunt’s 
natural  language.  For  a year  or  two  Rossetti  nig- 
gled and  stippled,  but  with  him  his  stippling  was 
sheer  inability  to  paint  otherwise,  and  he  felt  it  to 
be  so.  He  worked  for  months  on  the  calf  in  “ Found,” 


AND  PRERAPHAELITISM 


159 


and  succumbed  in  despair:  the  picture  was  never 
finished.  Then  he  gave  up  exhibiting,  gave  up  paint- 
ing in  oil,  gave  up  painting  from  nature,  and  did 
little  water-colour  drawings,  mediseval  in  subject, 
brightly  coloured  like  illuminations,  and  done  entirely 
out  of  his  head  and  without  models.  By  1859  wa 
find  him  taking  up  oils  again  and  painting  life-size, 
with  the  distinct  purpose  of  avoiding  ‘‘the  niggling 
process  ” and  of  “ learning  to  paint.”  He  never  did 
quite  learn  to  paint,  and  his  work  always  remained 
amateurish  and  feeble;  but  it  is  no  longer  Pre- 
raphaelite  in  anything  but  name.  Such  a picture 
as  the  “Lady  Lilith”  differs  from  any  other  paint- 
ing only  by  virtue  of  the  personal  and  temperamental 
characteristics  of  its  author  and  by  the  feeblenesses 
and  mannerisms  of  imperfect  training.  It  shows  the 
influence  of  Titian  much  more  than  that  of  any  prim- 
itive painter,  in  its  technical  aim.  As  for  Millais, 
his  Preraphaelitism  was  a temporary  phase  of  his 
development,  corresponding  to  the  period  of  intense 
study  of  detail  through  which  most  painters  have 
passed.  He  was  the  only  one  of  the  three  possessed 
of  talent,  and  the  pictures  painted  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  other  two  were  those  which  gave  the  school 
its  eclat  and  what  popularity  it  had. 

Though  Hunt  was  the  true  Preraphaelite,  he  has 
had  little  influence  and  has  raised  up  no  followers. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  see  now  that  the  movement  was 
a false  one,  and  based  on  the  denial  of  art.  In  trying 


160 


FORD  MADOX  BROWN 


to  “go  back  to  nature”  from  the  false  and  feeble 
art  of  that  time,  Hunt  went  so  far  that  no  art  was 
left  at  all.  His  hardness,  rigidity,  ungainliness, 
painful  elaboration,  shocking  crudity  of  colour,  can 
have  an  attraction  for  few  mortals;  and  Preraphael- 
itism  as  he  and  Ruskin  understood  it  was  predestined 
to  sterility.  The  pseudo-mediaevalism  of  Rossetti 
had  a different  fate.  He,  at  least,  was  an  artist  if 
not  a painter,  and  his  personal  fascination  and  a 
certain  charm  in  his  mannered  and  faulty  work 
exercised  a great  influence  on  Burne-Jones,  William 
Morris,  and  others.  And  so  it  happens  that  the  only 
school  founded  by  the  brotherhood  of  painters  who 
preached  absolute  fidelity  to  nature  as  their  cardinal 
doctrine,  is  precisely  the  most  artificial  and  anti- 
natural school  of  art  to-day  existing,  and  that 
the  Neo-Preraphaelites,  sprung  directly  from  the 
only  genius  in  the  old  Brotherhood,  practise  the  very 
reverse  of  what  that  Brotherhood  preached.  Their 
art  is  languorously  affected,  determinedly  archaistic, 
wonderfully  elaborated,  but  never  true  to  fact. 

If  in  the  one  particular  of  minuteness  of  detail 
Madox  Brown  was  not  yet  a Preraphaelite  when  the 
Brotherhood  was  founded,  he  soon  became  one  to  the 
fullest  extent;  and  no  more  thoroughly  Preraphaelite 
paintings  exist  than  “ The  Last  of  England  ” and 
“Work.”  Neither  can  any  clearer  insight  into  Pre- 
raphaelite  methods  be  gained  than  from  the  perusal 
of  some  passages  of  Madox  Brown’s  diary.  His 


AND  PRERAPHAELITISM 


161 


phrase  of  stepping  backwards  ” describes  Pre- 
raphaelite  practice  perfectly.  Preraphaelitism,  as 
practised  by  its  founders  and  as  advocated  by 
Ruskin,  was  essentially  an  appeal  to  the  boy  or 
the  savage;  it  was  the  denial  of  synthesis,  of  com- 
position, and  of  art,  and  the  attempt  to  produce  a 
literal  imitation  of  nature  by  exact  analysis  and  by 
a return  to  the  most  primitive  of  technical  methods. 
Their  practice  was  more  important  than  their  theory, 
and  this  was  to  paint  each  object  separately,  direct 
from  nature,  on  a pure  white  ground,  proceeding 
thus  until  the  last  object  was  finished  and  the  last 
bit  of  canvas  covered,  when  the  picture  was  complete. 
Justness  of  effect  and  beauty  of  tone  are  impossible 
by  such  a manner  of  working,  but  a certain  glaring 
brightness  of  colour  and  a hard  glitter  of  detail  are 
gained.  The  savage  love  of  bright  colour  and  the 
savage  desire  for  clearly  recognisable  facts  are  both 
satisfied.  At  the  very  time  when  the  men  of  Bar- 
bizon  were  producing  their  splendidly  synthetic  and 
essentially  artistic  work,  the  most  serious  artists  of 
England  were  struggling  with  the  impossible  task 
of  reforming  art  by  reforming  it  altogether. 

On  Thursday,  the  19th  of  June,  1856,  Madox 
Brown  “came  home  and  debated  what  I was  to  do. 
By  Friday  night  I settled  upon  two  fresh  subjects.” 
One  of  these  was  afterwards  called  “ Stages  of 
Cruelty,”  but  is  generally  referred  to  by  the  artist, 
for  obvious  reasons,  as  “the  Lilac  Leaves.”  He  had 


162 


FORD  MADOX  BROWN 


decided  upon  the  picture  on  Friday  night,  and  this 
is  the  account  of  the  first  day’s  work : “ Saturday, 

21st — After  some  bother  and  delays,  began  by  three 
and  worked  till  eight  at  the  garden  one;  painted 
eight  bricks  and  some  leaves.”  Observe  that,  in  this 
case,  there  cannot  have  been  even  an  outline  on  the 
canvas.  The  “eight  bricks”  were  painted  all  by 
themselves.  A month  later  (July  19)  he  has  “A 
great  deal  of  trouble  In  arranging  the  leaves  at  the 
side  of  the  head,  pinning  on  fresh  ones  where  they 
are  blighted.”  It  is  only  on  the  next  day  that  he 
begins  “ designing  the  two  lovers.”  The  picture 
was  finally  laid  aside  and  not  finished  till  1891. 
“The  Last  of  England”  was  also  painted  in  the 
open  air,  and,  “when  the  flesh  was  being  painted, 
on  cold  days,”  “to  ensure  the  blue  appearance  that 
flesh  assumes  under  such  circumstances.”  The  result 
on  the  painter’s  health  was  disastrous ; that  upon  the 
pictures  is  best  given  in  his  grandson’s  own  words; 

“When  one  stands  before  the  picture  [“Work”], 
it  is  difficult  for  the  eye  to  find  a point  on  which  to 
settle.  The  colour,  too,  is  not  ‘colourist’s  colour,* 
at  least  as  I understand  the  words;  it  is  wanting 
in  harmoniousness,  disturbing,  and  what  not.  One 
might  almost  say  that  both  pictures  [“Work”  and 
“ The  Last  of  England  ”]  had  been  painted  with  the 
then  newly  discovered  aniline  dyes.” 

Such  was  the  true  Preraphaelitism  of  the  early 
fifties,  and  of  its  exemplars  Holman  Hunt  is  the  only 


AND  PRERAPHAELITISM 


163 


survivor,  as  he  was  the  only  one  who  continued  to 
work  in  that  manner.  With  the  founding  of  the 
Firm  ” (Morris,  Marshall,  Falkner  & Co.),  the  move- 
ment changed  front  entirely,  and  became  an  aesthetic 
movement  instead  of  a realistic  one.  Madox  Brown 
was  here  also  something  of  a “ precursor,”  having  been 
in  the  habit  for  some  years  of  designing  furniture 
for  himself  and  his  friends.  He  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  “ Firm,”  and  furnished  it  with  many 
cartoons  for  stained  glass.  As  a result,  after  1865, 
“ his  pictures  became  rather  essentially  decorative 
than  essentially  realist.”  As  a member  of  the  Eng- 
lish aesthetic  school  he  is  best  known,  and  in  that 
capacity  he  has  been  a good  deal  overshadowed  by 
the  greater  artistic  and  poetic  feeling  of  Rossetti 
and  the  vastly  greater  ability  of  Burne-Jones.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether,  in  the  words  of  his  biog- 
rapher, “this  stage  of  his  art  was  nearly  as  much 
his  own  as  was  the  realistic  one.”  Yet  in  this  later 
vein  he  produced  such  works  as  “ Cordelia’s  Portion  ” 
and  “Elijah  and  the  Widow’s  Son,”  to  name  but  two, 
which  have  great  and  serious  qualities,  if  also  grave 
defects.  First  of  these  qualities  are  to  be  ranked 
fine  dramatic  feeling  and  emotional  expression.  His 
colour  is  also  said  to  have  attained  great  splendour 
and  depth.  His  drawing  was  always  tentative  and 
uncertain,  and  in  his  effort  for  dramatic  expression 
he  was  tolerant  of  strange  awkwardnesses  and  un- 
gainly attitudes.  Another  fault  was  an  inexplicable 


164- 


FORD  MADOX  BROWN 


fondness  for  great  bundles  of  crinkled  drapery  that 
destroy  all  simplicity  of  mass  and  dignity  of  line. 
His  last  years  were  devoted  to  a series  of  decorative 
paintings  for  the  Manchester  town  hall,  which  show 
in  their  composition  all  the  merits  and  all  the  faults 
of  his  later  manner.  Of  their  effectiveness  as  deco- 
ration one  who  has  not  seen  them  in  place  has  no 
right  to  judge. 

To  quote  his  grandson  and  biographer,  in  con- 
clusion : 

“ His  work  was  never  suave,  never  quite  complete ; 
but  it  was  vigorous  and  honest  to  the  end,  always 
instinct  with  a noble  feeling  for  style,  and,  within  its 
wide  but  well-defined  limit,  as  thorough  as  possible.’* 


MILLAIS 


JOHN  EVERETT  MIIXAIS,  beginning  as  a 
rebel,  ended  as  the  official  chief  of  British  art, 
and  lived  through  a storm  of  savage  criticism  to 
become  the  most  popular  painter  ever  known  and 
the  darling  of  the  great  British  public.  From 
“Johnny”  Millais,  P.  R.  B.,  to  Sir  John  Millais, 
P.  R.  A.,  was  a vast  stride;  and  from  the  painter  of 
“Ophelia”  and  “The  Huguenot”  to  the  painter  of 
“ Bubbles  ” seems,  at  first  sight,  an  even  longer  one, 
though  critics  have  differed  as  to  its  direction.  To 
us,  however,  looking  back  from  the  vantage  ground 
of  the  present,  it  seems  certain  that  Millais  was 
essentially  the  same  from  beginning  to  end,  that  his 
ultimate  triumph  was  always  assured,  and  that  the 
only  wonder  in  the  matter  is,  that  it  should  have 
taken  the  British  public  so  long  to  discover  that  he 
was  the  man  for  its  money.  As  a matter  of  fact,  it 
did  not  take  the  public  as  long  to  find  this  out  as 
it  did  the  critics,  and  the  engraving  of  “ The  Hugue- 
not” was  selling  like  hot  cakes  while  the  press  was 
snarling  and  snapping  at  the  painter’s  heels. 

John  Everett  Millais  was  bom  at  Southampton, 
June  8,  1829,  of  a family  of  poor  gentlefolk  from 
the  Island  of  Jersey,  where  much  of  his  childhood  was 

165 


166 


MILLAIS 


passed.  He  exhibited  a remarkably  precocious  talent 
for  drawing,  and  was  taken  to  London  at  the  age  of 
eight  to  begin  the  serious  study  of  art,  entered  the 
schools  of  the  Royal  Academy  at  ten,  and  had  taken 
every  prize  that  that  institution  offered  to  students 
before  he  was  twenty.  It  was  this  pet  of  the  schools, 
this  predestined  Academician,  who  in  1848  joined 
with  the  earnest  but  obscure  Hunt  and  the  flighty 
and  untrained  Rossetti  to  found  the  Preraphaelite 
Brotherhood,  and  unfurled  the  banner  of  revolt 
against  accepted  methods  of  painting. 

Preraphaelitism  was  a complex  movement,  com- 
pounded of  Rossetti’s  poetic  mediaevalism  and  Hunt’s 
religious  mysticism  and  naturalism,  and  it  was  only 
with  this  last  element  of  it  that  Millais  had  any  real 
sympathy.  His  “ Isabella  ” was  influenced  by  Ros- 
setti, and  his  ‘ “ Carpenter’s  Shop”  by  Hunt;  after 
that,  his  Preraphaelitism  took  a colour  of  its  own 
and  became  merely  a manner  of  painting.  He  was 
much  the  most  brilliant  executant  of  the  set  and  a 
splendid  fighter,  and  therefore  naturally  bore  the 
brunt  of  the  opposition  aroused  by  the  movement. 

There  are,  however,  not  wanting  signs  that  the 
opposition  was  less  serious  than  has  been  thought. 
The  fact  is  lightly  passed  by,  in  his  son’s  life  of  the 
painter,  that  in  1850,  the  year  of  “ The  Carpenter’s 
Shop,”  when  the  “storm  of  execration”  was  at  its 
loudest,  Millais  was  elected  an  Associate  of  the  Acad- 
emy, and  the  election  annulled  only  because  it  was 


^ ({ 


if 


MILLAIS 


THE  HUGUENOT 


MILLAIS 


167 


discovered  that  he  was  not  yet  of  the  requisite  age. 
In  1852  came  ‘‘The  Huguenot,”  the  first  picture 
definitely  his  own;  and  in  1853,  when  “The  Pro- 
scribed Royalist”  and  “The  Order  of  Release” 
appeared,  the  Academy  capitulated.  It  had  taken 
only  five  years  to  force  its  doors,  and  Millais  was 
an  A.  R.  A.  at  twenty-four.  Meanwhile  it  is  well 
to  note  that  his  pictures  were  almost  invariably  sold, 
and  for  what  still  seem  very  fair  prices.  The 
“ bullying  ” of  the  press  really  did  him  no  harm,  and 
brought  out  Ruskin  in  his  defence.  He  was  the  most 
discussed  and  therefore  the  most  famous  artist  of 
the  day.  In  his  letters  he  grumbles  much  and  talks 
of  efforts  to  “put  him  down,”  and  seems  to  dream 
of  a conspiracy  against  him.  The  fact  is,  rather, 
that  few  young  artists  have  had  so  easy  and  rapid 
a road  to  success. 

How  soon  he  began  to  outgrow  the  primitive 
methods  of  his  school  is  shown  by  W.  Bell  Scott’s 
record  of  a conversation  with  him,  “a  year,  or  per- 
haps two,”  after  the  first  visit  to  Hunt’s  studio  in 
1847-8: 

“I  was  in  Millais’s  studio,”  says  Scott,  “when  I 
observed  a print  hanging  there  framed.  It  was  an 
Italian  engraving,  inscribed  ‘From  Nature,’  by 
Agostino  Lauro  at  Turin,  dated  184*5,  and  called 
‘ Meditacione,’  representing  a girl  seated  among 
shrubs  and  trees.  Every  leaf  of  every  plant,  nay, 
the  two  halves  of  every  leaf,  radiating  from  the 


168 


MILLAIS 


centre  fibre  even  of  those  in  shade,  were  elaborated, 
and  the  pattern  on  the  dress  of  the  girl  was  in  every 
part  exactly  made  out.  I was  arrested  by  this  print 
when  Millais  quitted  his  easel  and  approached.  ‘ Ha ! 
you’ve  observed  that,  have  you?  that’s  P.  R.  B. 
enough,  is  it  not?  We  haven’t  come  up  to  that 
yet.  But,’  he  went  on,  ‘I  for  one  won’t  try;  it’s  all 
nonsense;  of  course  nature’s  nature,  and  art’s  art, 
isn’t  it  ? One  could  not  live  doing  that ! ’ ” 

About  the  same  time  he  said  to  Mrs.  Combe: 
“ People  had  better  buy  my  pictures  now,  when  I 
am  working  for  fame,  than  a few  years  later,  when 
I shall  be  married  and  working  for  a wife  and  chil- 
dren.” How  far  the  fact  that  one  “ couldn’t  live 
doing  that”  influenced  the  change,  it  is  hard  to  say, 
but  it  was  within  two  years  of  his  marriage  that  his 
break  with  Preraphaelitism  began  to  show  itself  in 
“ Sir  Isumbras,”  and  it  was  more  clearly  accented 
by  “The  Vale  of  Rest”  and  “Apple  Blossoms”  in 
1859.  For  a time  the  fight  was  on  again  in  all 
its  fury,  with  Ruskin  now  at  the  head  of  the 
enemy.  These  pictures  were  still  too  Preraphaelite 
for  his  old  opponents,  while  they  had  ceased  to  be 
Preraphaelite  enough  for  his  old  friends,  and  nobody 
was  pleased.  The  “ Apple  Blossoms,”  perhaps  one 
of  his  most  artistic  productions,  was  one  of  the  most 
unpopular  pictures  he  ever  painted.  This  time, 
however,  the  opposition  collapsed  even  more  quickly; 
“ The  Black  Bruns  wicker  ” of  the  next  year  becoming 


MILLAIS 


169 


vastly  popular.  In  1863  appeared  “My  First  Ser- 
mon,” the  earliest  of  his  pictures  in  what  may  be  called 
his  “ Christmas  Graphic  ” style,  and  he  was  made  a 
full  Academician  at  once. 

Madox  Brown  lived  and  died  an  unsuccessful  man. 
Rossetti  was  the  painter  of  a clique  and  the  founder 
of  the  aesthetic  cult.  Holman  Hunt,  by  dint  of 
dogged  persistence  and  by  his  appeal  to  the  religious 
sentiment,  worked  his  way  through  long  neglect  to 
a partial  popularity.  Millais  was,  almost  from  first 
to  last,  a favourite  of  the  British  Philistine,  because 
he  saw  with  the  eyes,  thought  with  the  brain,  and 
felt  with  the  soul  of  the  average  Briton.  Mr.  A.  L. 
Baldry  says,  speaking  of  “ Chill  October  ” and  its 
successors:  “The  unquestionable  popularity  that 

Millais  gained  by  his  excursions  into  landscape  was 
certainly  due  to  the  fact  that  his  observation  was  of 
the  ordinary  and  everyday  kind”;  and  a little  later: 
“ He  never  could  be  ranked  among  the  inspired 
painters  of  the  open  air,  nor  could  he  ever  be  said 
to  have  dealt  exhaustively  with  the  problems  presented 
by  natural  phenomena.  He  remained  untouched  by 
the  subtleties  of  atmospheric  effect,  by  the  varieties 
of  momentary  illumination,  or  by  the  fleeting  glories 
of  aerial  colour,  which  provide  the  student  of  nature’s 
devices  with  the  chief  incentive  to  artistic  effort.” 

This  is  very  acute  criticism,  and  it  is  surprising 
that  the  author  of  it  did  not  see  that,  in  everything 
else,  as  in  landscape  painting,  Millais’s  “ observation 


170 


MILLAIS 


was  of  the  ordinary  and  everyday  kind,”  and  that 
his  phenomenal  success  was  due  as  much  to  the  fact 
that  he  never  puzzled  his  public  by  seeing  what  it 
could  not  see,  as  to  the  fact  that  he  saw  and  rendered 
what  it  did  see  with  wonderful  accuracy. 

In  the  “Life  and  Letters,”  by  John  Guille  Millais, 
we  are  given  many  illuminating  glimpses  of  Pre- 
raphaelite  methods  of  study  and  production.  The 
formula  was  something  like  this.  One  took  a canvas 
into  the  country  and  found  something  that  interested 
him  as  a background.  Often  the  subject  of  the  pic- 
ture was  still  undetermined,  and  always  the  figures 
were,  at  most,  lightly  outlined  on  a white  ground. 
Leaving  a space  for  the  figures,  the  background  was 
painted  “inch  by  inch,”  as  Ruskin  used  to  say.  It 
might  take  months  to  complete,  but  changes  of  season 
mattered  as  little  as  changes  of  light,  and  the  painter 
who  could  work  eleven  hours  a day  “ under  an  umbrella 
throwing  a shadow  scarcely  larger  than  a half- 
penny” without  noticing  that  the  sun  had  changed 
its  position,  was  not  likely  to  be  bothered  by  the  suc- 
cession of  blossoms.  When  the  picture  was  “ done, 
all  but  the  figures,”  it  was  taken  to  London,  and  there, 
in  a studio,  the  figures  were  painted  with  equal  minute- 
ness from  life.  And  this  was  supposed  to  be  truth  to 
nature.  It  is  not  until  “The  Proscribed  Royalist” 
that  we  hear  of  any  effort  to  paint  the  figure  in  the 
same  light  as  the  landscape,  the  effort  consisting  in 
letting  in  the  sun  through  a window.  In  this  case 


MILLAIS 


171 


Millais  also  rigged  up  a lay-figure  on  the  spot  to  get 
the  draperies  right  with  their  surroundings.  He  does 
not  seem  to  have  done  the  like  very  often.  Brown’s 
conscientiousness  in  painting  out  of  doors  in  cold 
weather  to  get  the  purple  colour  of  the  flesh  was  never 
much  in  Millais’s  line.  The  minuteness  of  finish  Mil- 
lais gradually  abandoned.  The  painter  who  had 
said,  in  1851,  “Great  success  blunts  enthusiasm,  and 
little  by  little  men  get  into  carelessness,  which  is  con- 
strued by  idiotic  critics  into  a nobler  handling,”  could 
say  of  Ruskin  in  1859,  “ He  does  not  understand  my 
work,  which  is  now  too  broad  for  him  to  appreciate, 
and  I think  his  eye  is  only  fit  to  judge  the  portraits  of 
insects  ” ; but  the  change  was  in  reality  only  a super- 
ficial one,  and  the  “ breadth  ” was  that  of  brush-stroke 
only,  not  of  point  of  view. 

The  truth  is  that  Millais  was,  all  his  life,  equally 
insensible  to  truth  of  values  and  beauty  of  tone ; to  the 
larger  truths  of  nature  as  to  the  greater  qualities  of 
art.  The  lack  of  minute  finish  in  his  later  work  only 
renders  more  evident  the  limitation  of  view  that  was 
always  there.  It  is  not  more  essentially — only  more 
visibly — artificial  than  his  early  work.  But  if  Millais 
never  had  any  sense  of  values,  no  more  had  he  any 
feeling  for  composition  or  for  drawing  as  such.  He 
drew  fairly  well  as  regards  accuracy  to  fact,  but  there 
is  nothing  in  his  work  to  show  that  he  ever  cared  for 
line  or  form  as  a means  of  artistic  expression.  In 
fact,  he  never  cared  for  any  purely  artistic  quality  be- 


172 


MILLAIS 


cause  it  was  artistic.  He  was  a typical  Englishman, 
with  the  Englishman’s  love  of  sport,  of  out-of-doors, 
of  the  family,  and  of  sentiment.  He  loved  a land- 
scape because  it  was  a good  spot  for  fishing  or  shoot- 
ing, an  incident  because  it  was  heroic  or  sentimental, 
a woman  because  she  was  handsome,  and  a child  be- 
cause it  was  a pretty  child;  he  never  cared  for  or 
thought  of  what  he  could  make  of  it  in  a work  of  art — 
the  grace  of  an  outline,  the  intricacy  of  a pattern,  the 
dignity  of  a silhouette,  or  the  harmony  of  tone  and 
colour.  He  looked  at  landscape  like  a game-keeper, 
and  it  has  been  said  that  he  saw  children  “ like  a 
nursery-maid.”  In  early  days  he  enjoyed  the  minutiae 
of  realisation,  and  in  later  days  he  revelled  in  the 
sleight-of-hand  of  suggestion,  but  it  was  always  rep- 
resentation that  he  cared  for,  never  art;  and  represen- 
tation of  mere  fact,  never  of  effect. 

He  has  been  much  blamed  for  the  falling  off  of 
imagination  and  invention  in  his  later  work — it  seems 
to  me,  unjustly.  He  had  never  had  much,  and  what 
little  he  had  was  illustrative,  not  pictorial,  imagina- 
tion. His  tendency  to  produce  his  result  with  as  little 
trouble  as  possible  showed  itself  at  least  as  early  as 
‘‘The  Huguenot.”  He  had  meant  merely  to  paint 
two  lovers,  but  Hunt  persuaded  him  that  the  motive 
was  not  sufficiently  dignified,  and  that  some  historical 
episode  must  be  suggested.  The  white  scarf  did  the 
business  and  a picture  resulted  that  took  the  public 
taste.  As  Mr.  Monkhouse  says,  in  “ British  Contem- 


MILLAIS 


173 


porary  Artists  ” : “ The  picture  touched  the  dearest 

sentiments  of  the  English,  it  appealed  to  their  sense 
of  beauty,  to  their  affections,  to  their  love  of  moral 
courage,  and  to  their  religious  convictions.  If  Mil- 
lais had  thought  it  all  out  beforehand  ...  he 
could  not  have  chosen  a subject  more  attractive  to 
the  visitors  of  the  Royal  Academy.” 

The  type  of  picture  once  established  was  adhered  to, 
and  “The  Huguenot”  was  followed  by  “The  Pro- 
scribed Royalist,”  “ The  Order  of  Release,”  and 
“ The  Black  Brunswicker.”  Gradually  it  dawned 
upon  Millais  that  even  this  much  of  invention  was 
more  than  was  necessary,  and  that  one  figure  and  a 
title  (if  the  figure  were  that  of  a pretty  woman)  would 
answer  the  purpose ; and  he  painted  “ The  Gambler’s 
Wife  ” and  “ Yes  or  No.”  What  did  it  matter  ? All 
he  cared  for  himself  was  the  model  and  the  sleight-of- 
hand.  “ If  I were  a rich  man,”  he  said,  “ I would  pay 
some  one  to  paint  pictures  for  me,  and  spend  my  time 
in  putting  high  lights  in  the  boots.”  His  executive 
talent  nearly  reached  the  level  of  high  art  at  times,  and 
“The  Yeoman  of  the  Guard”  and  “Mrs.  Bischoffs- 
heim”  are  so  brilliantly  executed  as  to  be  nearly 
great.  At  worst  it  degenerated  into  a wormy,  stringy 
handling  that  is  distressing.  On  the  other  hand,  his 
later  attempts  at  grand  art,  such  as  “ Jephthah”  and 
“Victory,  O Lord!”  are  lamentable  failures.  Better 
one  “ Cherry  Ripe  ” than  a hundred  such  historical 
pictures.  After  all,  there  is  subject  enough  in 


174 


MILLAIS 


‘‘  Cherry  Ripe  ” for  a Sir  Joshua,  or  even  for  a Velas- 
quez, if  only  there  were  the  artist  eye  to  see  it. 

But  if  Millais  was  very  little  of  an  artist  and  only 
half  a painter,  he  was  an  illustrator  pur  sang,  Trol- 
lope said  that  “Orley  Farm”  was  the  best  illustrated  of 
any  novel  ever  published,  and  probably  he  was  right. 
Millais’s  merits  and  faults  equally  helped  to  make  him 
a good  illustrator,  and  in  Trollope  he  found  the  man 
he  was  best  fitted  to  illustrate.  The  author  gave  the 
ideas,  and  the  artist  found  the  forms;  and  the  more 
he  was  occupied  with  sheer  representation  and  the  less 
he  bothered  about  composition,  the  better.  All  Mil- 
lais’s illustrative  work  shows  his  remarkable  fitness  to 
become  eye  and  hand  to  another  man’s  brain.  He  did 
not  have  persistent  visions  of  his  own  which  came  be- 
tween himself  and  the  page,  to  lead  him,  as  they  led 
Rossetti,  into  fantastic  embroideries  upon  the  text. 
What  Millais  saw  in  his  reading  was  just  what  the 
average  Englishman  sees  there,  and  that  he  put  down 
quite  clearly  and  comprehensively.  In  Trollope  he 
found  a man  of  his  own  type — an  average  Briton  like 
himself — and  we  have  Trollope’s  own  word  for  it  that 
Millais’s  drawings  are  an  exact  transcript  of  what 
the  author  meant. 

There  was  one  other  field  in  which  Millais’s  preoc- 
cupation with  representation  rather  than  art,  and  with 
fact  rather  than  with  aspect,  was  of  service  to  him — 
that  of  portraiture.  The  very  greatest  portraits  are 
works  of  art  also,  but  there  is  a level  at  which  artistic 


MILLAIS 


175 


preoccupation  hinders  veracity.  Millais  will  not  rank 
with  the  greatest  portrait-painters,  but  at  least  he  did 
not  allow  style  or  line  or  tone  to  stand  between  him  and 
a clear  perception  of  the  sitter.  In  his  portraits  of 
women  and  children  he  did,  indeed,  allow  the  desire  of 
prettiness  to  master  him;  but  in  his  best  portraits 
of  men  he  is  earnest  and  veracious,  and  some  of  Eng- 
land’s greatest  men  will  probably  be  remembered  as 
he  has  represented  them. 

The  late  President  of  the  Royal  Academy  always 
knew  what  his  public  liked,  and  always  gave  it  them, 
while  he  had  sufficient  skill  as  a technician  to  merit 
and  to  retain  the  respect  of  his  professional  rivals. 
He  was  far  from  a great  artist,  but  he  was  a most  in- 
dustrious and  honourable  man,  and  probably  deserved 
all  that  he  received.  If  there  were,  perchance,  truer 
artists  who  were  neglected  while  he  succeeded,  they  had 
their  reward  in  the  doing  of  their  work  and  the  hope 
of  a posthumous  immortality,  even  if  their  portraits 
do  not  hang  in  the  Uffizi. 


BURNE-JONES 


WHEN  an  original  artist  has  at  last 
mastered  his  public  and  compelled  recog- 
nition, we  are  apt  to  cry  out  against  the 
ignorance  or  malice  that  has  delayed  the  recognition ; 
but  we  are  usually  wrong.  The  world  is  not  so  un- 
ready to  recognise  good  work  when  it  is  once  done, 
but  it  is  natural  and  necessary  that  it  should  require 
some  definite  proof  that  the  work  is  good.  Certainly 
Burne-Jones  had  little  to  complain  of.  If  he  was 
ridiculed  for  some  of  his  mannerisms  and  peculiar- 
ities, he  found  patrons  from  the  first  and  was  the 
object  of  as  much  enthusiastic  admiration  as  ridicule. 
Much  of  the  criticism  on  his  earlier  work  was  entirely 
deserved,  and  even  in  liis  best  and  most  mature  pro- 
ductions there  are  weaknesses  and  mannerisms  which 
it  is  perfectly  right  and  natural  to  point  out.  Nay, 
a critic  is  not  necessarily  either  foolish  or  malicious 
because  he  finds  these  peculiarities  so  offensive  to  his 
taste  as  to  overbalance  his  enjoyment  of  the  merits 
which  few  would  deny.  He  simply  occupies  one  of 
the  two  positions  one  or  other  of  which  every  one 
instinctively  takes  towards  every  novelty. 

Burne-Jones’s  earliest  pictures  were  painted  under 
the  influence  of  Rossetti  and,  by  Rossetti’s  advice, 

176 


BURNE-JONES 


177 


without  previous  study  of  any  sort ; and  they  show  all 
the  imitative  tendency  and  technical  weakness  that 
might  be  expected  from  such  a beginning.  The 
drawing  is  often  childish  in  the  extreme,  the  execution 
laboured  and  painful,  and  the  imitation  of  Rossetti’s 
types  and  manner  very  marked.  Gradually  the  imi- 
tation becomes  less  noticeable,  and  the  artist’s  own 
style  disengages  itself ; while,  by  dint  of  long  and 
serious  study,  the  drawing  becomes  elegant  and  refined 
and  the  workmanship,  though  remaining  elaborate 
and  detailed  in  the  extreme,  becomes  broader  and  more 
assured.  With  the  Chant  d’ Amour,”  the  “ Wine  of 
Circe,”  and  other  pictures  painted  in  the  sixties,  he 
becomes  definitely  the  artist  as  we  know  him.  Thence 
he  grew  steadily  more  accomplished,  and  also  accented 
more  and  more  that  tendency  to  archaism  which  is  so 
strongly  marked  in  him  and  which  has  given  offence 
to  his  critics. 

He  had  not  publicly  exhibited  for  many  years  when 
the  Grosvenor  Gallery  was  opened  in  1877  and  the 
“Angels  of  Creation,”  the  “Mirror  of  Venus,”  the 
“ Beguiling  of  Merlin,”  and  several  minor  or  unfin- 
ished works  were  shown.  Works  of  so  much  power 
and  so  different  from  the  general  run  of  painting 
naturally  excited  much  discussion,  and  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  deny  that  there  were  faults  enough  to  justify 
the  scoffers.  Punch'' s description  of  the  figure  of 
Vivien  as  “ at  least  twelve  heads  high  ” is  somewhat 
of  an  exaggeration,  but  she  certainly  is  preternatur- 


1T8 


BURNE-JONES 


ally  tall,  and  both  her  figure  and  that  of  Merlin  are, 
or  appear,  impossibly  posed  and  curiously  drawn. 
Neither  could  a woman  well  get  her  gown  into  such 
folds  as  Vivien’s,  or  walk  in  it  if  she  did.  From  the 
naturalistic,  which  is  the  natural,  point  of  view,  the 
picture  is  absurd  enough.  Yet  there  were  merits  in 
these  w^orks  of  a high  and  rare  kind.  There  was  a 
great  power  in  the  arrangement  of  lines  and  great 
feeling  for  the  beauty  and  quality  of  the  line  in  itself, 
endless  invention  in  intricate  and  charming  detail,  a 
strange  mastery  of  expression,  always  the  same  but 
always  interesting.  The  same  type  of  head,  con- 
stantly recurring,  with  the  same  wistful,  wide-eyed, 
melancholy  look,  reminds  one  of  the  “ waters  wan  ” 
that  appear  at  such  brief  intervals  in  the  verse  of 
Burne-Jones’s  great  friend,  William  Morris. 

The  ‘‘  Angels  of  Creation  ” shows  the  painter,  per- 
haps, at  his  very  best.  The  mastery  of  composition 
revealed  in  the  constantly  varying  treatment  of  the 
same  simple  motive,  the  gradual  crowding  of  the 
narrow  panel  as  figure  after  figure  is  added  without 
the  harmony  of  line  or  mass  ever  being  disturbed  for 
a moment,  the  curious  invention  of  plaited  fold  and 
woven  wings  that  make  his  angels  seem  like  strange 
feathered  creatures  to  whom  flying  is  more  natural 
than  walking — all  this  is  wonderful  and  inimitable. 
True,  the  graceful  hands  and  feet  are  unnaturally 
long  and  slender  and  somewhat  boneless;  true,  that 
light  and  shade  are  absent  and  the  figures  are  im- 


BURNE-JONES 


179 


mersed  in  water  rather  than  in  air,  so  clear  and 
unatmospheric  is  the  effect;  true,  the  sentiment  is 
somewhat  lackadaisical  and  sickly-sweet — true,  in  a 
word,  that  this  is  art  of  a highly  artificial  kind, 
unrobust  and  stifling,  and  that  one  feels  in  it  as 
in  a hothouse  filled  with  flowers,  and  longs  for  a 
breath  of  “ caller  air  ” ; but  it  is  art,  and  art  of 
singular  power  and  perfection  within  its  limits,  and 
its  qualities  are  precisely  those  ordinarily  lacking  in 
the  naturalistic  and  wholly  picturesque  art  of  to-day. 
No  wonder  that  the  French,  with  their  legion  of  good 
painters  who  seem  not  to  know  what  to  do  with  the 
marvellous  realistic  power  acquired  through  genera- 
tions of  research,  felt  that  here  was  something  new 
and  different,  and  worthy  of  study  and  of  all  respect. 
If  Burne-Jones  had  stopped  here,  there  would  be  little 
but  praise  to  give  him ; but  in  later  works  his  archa- 
istic  tendencies  have  carried  him  much  farther,  with 
regrettable  results. 

Mr.  Malcolm  Bell  has  undertaken  the  task  of 
defending  the  artist  against  his  critics,  but  he  seems 
to  have  missed  the  point  of  the  criticism.  His  defence 
is  mainly  concerned  with  charges  of  “ insincerity,”  af- 
fectation, and  imitation,  and  also  with  the  charge  that 
Burne-Jones  is  a “literary  painter.”  On  this  last 
count  of  the  indictment  he  may  be  acquitted  at  once. 
Burne-Jones  is  always  pictorial.  He  is  fond  of  elab- 
orate allegory  and  a certain  mysticism  of  thought 
and  under-intention,  but  artistic  expression  is  always 


180 


BURNE-JONES 


his  main  aim.  As  Leigh  Hunt  (or  was  it  Hazlitt?) 
said  of  “ The  Faery  Queen,”  “ The  allegory  will  not 
bite  you,”  and  if  the  work  of  art  is  beautiful,  we  can 
perhaps  forgive  the  artist  for  having  a meaning. 
But  for  the  other  charges  there  seems  to  be  more 
foundation.  An  unnamed  critic  has  said  of  “The 
Annunciation,”  “ The  Angel  Gabriel  ...  is  clad  in 
insincere  draperies,  copied  from  we  know  not  what 
quaint  mediaeval  work,”  and  repeats  in  various  forms 
the  charge  of  imitation.  Mr.  Bell’s  defence  is  that 
Burne-Jones’s  draperies  are  not  copied  directly  from 
any  original,  and  that  if  any  one  says  so  he  should 
point  out  the  original ; also,  that  numerous  and  care- 
ful studies  exist  for  all  his  works,  and  that  many  of 
these  have  been  exhibited,  and  that  they  show  that 
his  work  is  done  from  nature  and  not  copied  from  any 
other  artist.  All  of  which  is  true,  but  does  not  in 
the  least  affect  the  point  at  issue.  Burne-Jones  is 
not  accused  of  plagiarism,  but  of  pastiche^  which  is  a 
very  different  thing.  One  may  work  from  nature 
with  the  intention  of  imitating  the  style  of  another 
artist,  and  it  is  this  which  Burne-Jones  seems  to  have 
done  very  often.  Nor  is  it  very  difficult  to  name  the 
sources  of  some  of  his  mannerisms.  At  first  the  style 
of  his  draperies  is  only  vaguely  Italian  and  fifteenth- 
century.  Then  there  is  a very  pronounced  imitation 
of  Mantegna.  The  draperies  of  the  Vivien  and 
others  of  that  type  show  most  distinctly  the  influence 
of  the  Mantuan  master.  Later,  more  particularly  in 


>9 


BURNE-JONES  : 


THE  ANNUNCIATION 


BURNE-JONES 


181 


his  designs  for  stained  glass  and  in  the  figure  of  the 
Angel  Gabriel  in  the  picture  under  discussion,  the 
treatment  is  inspired  by  Gothic  sculpture.  Still 
later,  as  in  the  “ Dies  Domini,”  and  in  the  mosaics 
which  he  did  for  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity  at 
Rome,  and,  partly,  in  the  “ Sponsa  di  Libano,”  he 
has  gone  back  to  the  Byzantines  for  his  inspiration. 
Now  all  this  may  be  justifiable  enough,  but  it  certainly 
gives  some  cause,  if  not  reason,  for  criticism.  In  the 
case  of  the  mosaics  it  is  certainly  largely  justifiable, 
though  one  may  think  that  the  imitation  is  pushed 
unnecessarily  far,  and  that  the  archaic  little  angels, 
with  their  pointed  toes,  hanging  down  from  the  centre 
of  the  dome,  are  rather  ridiculous,  while  the  Christ 
might  be  as  severely  decorative  and  impressive  with- 
out his  curiously  ruffled-looking  gown.  In  the  “ Dies 
Domini,”  again,  the  peculiar  pose  of  the  feet,  with  the 
ankles  drawn  together  and  the  toes  turned  out,  and 
the  bad  foreshortening,  seems  to  us  little  less  than 
deliberate  affectation  without  any  gain  whatever.  In 
this  figure,  as  in  the  ‘‘  Sponsa  di  Libano,”  the  drapery, 
too,  might  have  had  all  the  composition  of  line  without 
such  rigidity  of  fold  and  lack  of  modelling.  The 
imitation  of  Byzantine  stiffness  is  pushed  to  an  ex- 
treme in  the  figures  of  angels  in  the  window  in  St. 
Peter’s  Church,  Vere  Street,  London,  where  the  whole 
figure  is  stretched  out  into  impossible  length  and 
straightness,  the  draperies  are  subdivided  into  innum- 
erable rigid  lines,  and  the  wings  are  not  only  unnatural 


18« 


BURNE-JONES 


in  form,  but  positively  ugly  and  undecorative  as  well. 
The  drawing  of  the  legs  of  Mars  in  one  of  the  designs 
representing  the  Seasons  is  equally  meaninglessly 
archaic. 

But  when  all  is  said — when  one  has  fully  admitted 
that  he  is  imitative  and  mannered,  that  his  figures  are 
wonderfully  long  and  thin,  that  his  heads  habitually 
lean  forward  at  nearly  a right  angle  with  the  spine, 
that  his  lack  of  early  training  makes  his  drawing  of 
the  nude  feebly  round  and  unaccented,  that  his  repe- 
titions of  hungry  eyes  and  hollow  cheeks  and  promi- 
nent chins  are  somewhat  wearisome,  that  his  types, 
both  of  men  and  women,  are  epicene — Burne-Jones 
remains  one  of  the  most  remarkable  creative  artists 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  a man  of  great  and 
undoubted  power  and  originality  of  design. 


MEISSONIER 


By  the  average  person  who  possesses  some 
knowledge  of  modern  painting,  extreme  mi- 
nuteness of  detail  is  probably  considered  as  the 
most  pronounced  characteristic  and  the  greatest  merit 
of  Meissonier’s  art.  “Finished  like  a Meissonier,” 
is  a proverbial  phrase  with  such  persons,  and  they  are 
apt  to  imagine  that  the  qualities  of  eye  and  hand 
which  rendered  such  minuteness  possible,  and  the  vast 
industry  which  achieved  it,  are  the  principal  elements 
in  Meissonier’s  fame  and  the  cause  of  the  phenomenal 
prices  his  works  attained.  That  minuteness  and 
laborious  finish  are  a part  of  the  commercial  value  of 
these  works  it  would  be  absurd  to  deny,  but  it  may  be 
affirmed  that  they  have  practically  nothing  to  do 
with  the  painter’s  artistic  reputation.  Mere  minute- 
ness and  the  evidence  of  labour  will  always  have  their 
effect  on  prices,  but  they  will  never  make  a man 
Member  of  the  Institute,  Grand  Officer  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour,  or  President  of  the  Societe  Nationale  des 
Beaux-Arts.  The  extreme  “finish”  of  Meissonier’s 
work  is  in  reality  mainly  the  outcome  of  a physical 
peculiarity  or  defect — extreme  shortness  of  sight.  In 

183 


184 


MEISSONIER 


his  essay  on  Bonnat  in  Van  Dyke’s  “Modern  French 
Masters,”  Mr.  Blashfield  relates  how  that  master, 
sitting  next  to  M.  Maspero  at  a great  dinner  one 
night,  said  to  him : 

“ ‘ Maspero,  you  who  are  so  near-sighted,  tell  me  how 

does  M , away  down  there  at  the  foot  of  the 

table,  appear  to  you  ? ’ 

“‘Well,’  replied  M.  Maspero,  ‘I  see  a white  spot, 
which  I know  is  his  shirt-front,  and  a flesh-colored  spot, 
which  I know  is  his  face.’ 

“ ‘ Ah,’  cried  Bonnat,  ‘ how  I wish  my  pupils  could 
see  things  in  that  way ! ’ ” 

Now  it  is  noticeable  that  the  near-sighted  men  who 
really  “ see  things  in  that  way  ” never  paint  them  so, 
and  the  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  Their  manner  of 
painting  is  conditioned  less  on  what  they  see  in  nature 
than  on  what  they  see  upon  their  canvas.  All  “ broad  ” 
work  in  painting — all  free  and  large  handling — is 
intended  only  for  distant  effect,  and  becomes  unin- 
telligible when  seen  near  by.  The  near-sighted 
painter  cannot  see  his  picture  at  all  at  the  distance  for 
which  such  painting  is  intended,  and  all  his  work  is 
therefore  calculated  for  close  inspection,  and  is  con- 
sequently clean,  smooth,  and  detailed  in  the  extreme. 
If  the  painter  is  exceptionally  near-sighted,  it  may 
even  happen  that  he  paints  pictures  calculated  for  a 
nearer  vision  than  is  possible  to  the  average  human 
eye,  and  which  can  be  seen  properly  only  by  the  aid 
of  a glass.  So  we  have  the  paradox  that  those  who 


MEISSONIER 


185 


see  least  detail  in  nature,  with  unaided  vision,  are  pre- 
cisely those  who  paint  most,  and  it  is  the  short-sighted 
and  purblind  painters  who  astonish  us  with  their 
amazing  sharpness  of  delineation.  The  lengthening 
of  the  visual  focus  in  age,  as  well  as  growth  of  mas- 
tery and  impatience  of  little  things,  may  well  be  one 
of  the  reasons  for  the  greater  breadth  of  style  in  the 
late  work  of  all  great  painters.  Certain  it  is  that 
even  Meissonier’s  miracles  of  minuteness  are  works  of 
his  early  time,  and  that  while  he  never  became  a broad 
painter  (in  the  purely  technical  sense),  yet  his  later 
works  seem  more  capable  of  imitation  by  a normal 
human  being  than  do  his  earlier.  Boldini,  though 
always  much  freer  in  touch,  was  once  as  fond  of  a 
small  scale  and  almost  as  minute  as  Meissonier  him- 
self. He  now  paints  the  size  of  life  and  with  a large 
brush. 

While  the  small  scale  and  microscopic  workmanship 
of  Meissonier’s  pictures  may  therefore  be  treated  as, 
in  a sense,  accidental,  and  while  his  real  merits  would 
have  been  the  same  if  he  had  habitually  worked  in  the 
size  of  life,  yet  it  is  also  true  that  the  scale  reacted  on 
the  manner,  and  in  a way  peculiarly  suited  to  the 
genius  of  the  artist.  Meissonier  has  himself  stated 
with  great  clearness  a truth  familiar  to  all  painters, 
but  perhaps  not  so  well  known  to  the  public.  He 
says: 

“The  smaller  the  scale  of  one’s  picture,  the  more 
boldly  the  relief  must  be  brought  out.  The  larger 


186 


MEISSONIER 


the  scale,  the  more  it  must  be  softened  and  diminished. 
This  is  an  absolutely  indispensable  rule.  A life-size 
figure  treated  like  one  of  my  small  ones  would  be 
unendurable.” 

He  does  not  attempt  to  give  any  reason  for  this  rule, 
and  the  effort  to  find  one  would  take  us  too  far  afield. 
The  reader  must  be  content,  for  the  present,  to  accept 
the  fact  that  this  rule  exists.  Its  acceptance  will 
help  in  the  understanding  of  Meissonier’s  work,  and 
of  the  way  in  which  the  accident  of  scale  cooperated 
with  the  temperament  of  the  painter  to  produce  the 
style  we  know  so  well. 

This  style  was  formed  in  all  its  essentials  singularly 
early.  From  the  very  first  the  great  little  pictures 
seem  as  masterly  as  anything  their  author  afterwards 
produced.  His  life  was  a long  one,  and  was  filled 
with  untiring  study  and  industry,  yet  he  never  did 
things  better  than  he  did  at  first;  he  only  did  other 
things  as  well.  How  this  quite  prodigious  mastery 
was  attained  so  early  is  a mystery.  It  would  almost 
seem  as  if  this  artist  had  never  had  to  learn,  had  had 
no  period  of  uncertainty  and  struggle — had  almost 
been  born  a master.  His  subjects  change,  but  not  his 
manner.  From  the  beginning  of  his  career  to  the  end 
the  conception  of  art  is  identical,  the  methods  are  the 
same,  the  achievement  is  almost  uniform. 

It  may  even  be  doubted  if  some  of  Meissonier’s 
earlier  work  is  not  the  best  that  he  has  left,  merely 
because  the  subjects  and  the  scale  of  that  work  are 


MEISSONIER 


187 


admirably  fitted  for  the  display  of  his  qualities  and 
the  minimising  of  his  limitations.  It  is  the  admirable 
series  of  “ Smokers  ” and  “ Readers,”  “ Painters  ” 
and  “ Connoisseurs,”  which  give  the  fullest  measure 
of  his  powers  and  the  least  hint  of  his  shortcomings ; 
which  made  his  reputation  and  perhaps  are  likeliest 
to  maintain  it.  These  pictures  are  in  the  purest  vein 
of  genre  painting,  and  immediately  suggest  com- 
parison with  the  wonderful  little  masters  of  Holland. 
At  first  Meissonier  was  considered  as  a reviver  of 
Dutch  art,  and  that  he  was  a great  admirer  of  that  art 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  Upon  examination,  however, 
it  soon  becomes  evident  that  the  differences  between 
him  and  his  models  are  as  great  as  the  resemblances. 
First  of  these  differences  is  a fundamental  one  of  point 
of  view.  The  Dutch  masters  were  pure  painters,  and 
their  subjects  were  strictly  contemporary.  They  con- 
tented themselves  with  looking  about  them  and  paint- 
ing what  interested  them  in  what  they  saw.  Meis- 
sonier only  two  or  three  times  treated  contemporary 
subjects,  and  then  when  something  intensely  dramatic 
or  historically  important  attracted  him.  You  would 
look  in  vain  in  his  work  for  any  such  record  of  the 
ordinary  life  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  the  Dutch- 
men have  given  us  of  that  of  the  seventeenth.  Meis- 
sonier was  such  a master  of  the  antiquarianism  he 
practised — he  managed  to  enter  so  thoroughly  within 
the  skin  of  his  two  or  three  favourite  epochs — ^that  he 
almost  deceives  us  at  times;  but  he  was  nevertheless 


188 


MEISSONIER 


essentially  an  antiquarian,  and  therefore,  his  art 
never  has  the  spontaneity  of  the  old  work. 

Another  difference  is  in  the  quality  of  drawing. 
Meissonier  was  a wonderfully  accurate  draughtsman. 
His  drawing  is  composed  of  equal  parts  of  remarkably 
clear  and  accurate  vision  and  of  deep  scientific  acquire- 
ment. It  is  not  the  drawing  of  the  great  stylists,  the 
masters  of  beautiful  and  significant  line,  but  it  is 
marvellously  forceful  and  just.  The  drawing  of 
Ter  Borch  is  equally  accurate,  but  seems  to  have  no 
formula,  no  method,  no  ascertainable  knowledge 
behind  it.  It  seems  unconscious  and  naive  in  a way 
which  that  of  Meissonier  never  approaches.  Finally, 
in  colour  and  in  the  management  of  light,  Meissonier 
cannot  be  compared  to  any  one  of  half-a-dozen  Dutch 
painters.  His  tone  is  almost  always  a little  hot  and 
reddish  or,  as  the  painters  say,  “ foxy  ” ; his  handling 
a little  dry.  Sometimes  in  interiors  with  only  one  or 
two  figures  his  realistic  force  of  imitation  of  that  which 
was  before  him  almost  carried  him  to  a fine  rendering 
even  of  light  and  colour.  He  had  built  his  picture 
before  he  painted  it,  putting  every  object  that  was  to 
appear  upon  the  canvas  in  its  proper  place,  and  had 
only  to  copy  what  was  directly  under  his  eye,  and 
he  did  this  so  well  as  almost  to  become  a colourist  and 
a luminist.  It  is  only  when  he  tries  to  paint  open-air 
subjects  and  larger  compositions  that  his  defects 
become  very  apparent. 

His  merits  are  all  to  be  included  in  the  two  great 


MEISSONIER 


189 


ones  of  thoroughness  and  accuracy.  He  never  shirked 
any  difficulty  or  avoided  any  study,  was  never  form- 
less or  undecided  or  vague.  His  knowledge  of  cos- 
tume and  furniture  was  only  less  wonderful  than  his 
grasp  of  character  and  his  perfect  rendering  of  form. 
He  was  a thorough  realist,  with  little  imagination  and 
less  sense  of  beauty,  but  with  an  insatiable  appetite 
for  and  a marvellous  digestion  of  concrete  fact.  His 
work  is  amazing  in  its  industry,  but  his  industry  never 
becomes  mere  routine.  His  detail  is  never  mere  finikin 
particularity  of  touch,  but  is  patient  investigation  of 
truth.  At  his  best  he  is  hardly  sufficiently  to  be 
admired ; but  he  awakens  only  admiration,  never 
emotion.  His  drawing  is  absolute,  his  relief  start- 
ling, he  almost  gives  the  illusion  of  nature;  but  he 
never  evokes  a vision  of  beauty  or  charms  one  into 
a dream. 

Meissonier’s  qualities  are  fully  sufficient  to  account 
for  the  admiration  of  the  public  and  the  universal 
respect  of  his  brother  artists;  and  as  long  as  he  was 
content  to  be  a genre  painter  they  were  sufficient  to 
make  him  easily  the  first  genre  painter  of  his  time, 
if  not  quite,  as  he  has  been  called,  the  “ greatest  genre 
painter  of  any  age.”  In  his  later  work  they  are  less 
sufficient.  He  became  ambitious,  he  wanted  to  be 
a great  historical  painter,  to  paint  a “Napoleonic 
Cycle,”  to  decorate  the  walls  of  the  Pantheon.  He 
transferred  his  personages  to  the  open  air,  he  enlarged 
his  canvases  and  multiplied  his  figures,  he  attempted 


190 


MEISSONIER 


violent  movement.  His  methods,  which  had  been 
admirably  suited  to  the  production  of  almost  perfect 
little  pictures  of  tranquil  indoor  life,  were  not  so 
adequate  to  the  rendering  of  his  new  themes.  His  pro- 
digious industry,  his  exhaustive  accuracy,  his  vigour, 
and  his  conscientiousness  were  as  great  as  ever,  but 
the  most  exact  study  of  nature  in  detail  would  not  give 
the  effect  of  open  air,  the  most  rigorous  scientific 
analysis  of  the  movements  of  the  horse  would  not  make 
him  move,  the  accumulation  of  small  figures  would 
not  look  like  an  army.  It  was  in  vain  that  he  built 
a railway  to  follow  the  action  of  a galloping  horse, 
or  bought  a grain  field  that  he  might  see  just  what  it 
would  be  like  when  a squadron  had  charged  through  it. 
What  he  produced  may  possibly  be  demonstrably 
true,  but  it  does  not  look  true. 

•The  best  of  these  more  ambitious  works  is  perhaps 
the  “ 1814).”  The  worst  is  certainly  the  ‘‘  1807,” 
which  has  found  a home  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum. 
This  picture  is  almost  an  entire  failure,  and  yet  it 
possesses  every  one  of  the  qualities  which  made  Meis- 
sonier’s  greatness  in  as  high  a degree  as  any  earlier 
work.  The  industry,  the  strenuous  exactness,  the 
thoroughness,  the  impeccable  draughtsmanship,  the 
sharpness  of  relief,  are  all  here  at  their  greatest.  The 
amount  of  labour  that  the  picture  represents  is  simply 
appalling,  and  it  is  almost  all  wasted  because  it  is  not 
the  kind  of  labour  that  was  wanted.  On  all  these  figures 
not  a gaiter-button  is  wanting,  and  the  total  result  of 


MEISSONIER 


191 


all  this  addition  of  detail  is  simple  chaos.  The  idea 
of  the  composition  is  fine,  but  the  effect  is  missed. 
Looked  at  close  at  hand,  each  head,  each  hand,  each 
strap  and  buckle  is  masterly,  but,  at  a distance 
sufficiently  great  to  permit  the  whole  canvas  to  be 
taken  in  at  one  glance,  nothing  is  seen  but  a meaning- 
less glitter.  It  is  not  only  true  that  a life-size  figure 
treated  like  one  of  Meissonier’s  small  ones  “ would  be 
unendurable,”  but  it  is  equally  true  that  a great  num- 
ber of  such  small  figures  will  not  make  a large  picture. 
The  sharp  and  hard  detail  which  was  in  place  in  his 
early  canvases  is  fatal  to  the  unity  and  breadth  neces- 
sary to  a large  composition.  It  is  equally  fatal 
to  the  sense  of  movement.  The  “ Smokers  ” and 
‘‘  Readers  ” were  doing  as  little  as  possible,  and  one 
felt  that  one  had  plenty  of  time  to  notice  their  coat- 
buttons  and  the  smallest  details  of  their  costume ; the 
cuirassiers  of  “ 1807  ” are  dashing  by  at  a furious  gal- 
lop, and  the  eye  resents  the  realisation  of  detail  that 
it  could  not  possibly  perceive.  Even  if  the  action 
of  the  horses  in  the  picture  were  correct  (and,  for 
once,  it  is  not),  nothing  could  make  them  move  when 
the  eye  is  thus  arrested  by  infinitesimal  minutiae. 

Meissonier  was  a man  of  sound  common  sense,  and 
of  immense  strength  of  purpose  and  capacity  for 
labour ; very  vigorous,  very  determined  and  tenacious, 
and  very  vain,  whose  bulldog  pluck  and  energy  car- 
ried him  to  the  highest  point  of  material  success  in 
his  profession.  Within  his  limits  he  was  an  almost 


19^ 


MEISSONIER 


perfect  painter,  and  even  when  he  overstepped  them 
his  terrible  conscientiousness  in  the  exercise  of  great 
ability  will  always  merit  deep  respect.  He  thoroughly 
earned  the  honours  he  received,  the  fortune  he  acquired 
and  squandered,  and  the  immortality  of  which  he  is 
reasonably  certain. 


BAUDRY 


IT  is  natural  and  right  that  the  artists  we  most 
heartily  admire  should  be  those  of  the  greatest 
original  force,  and  that  we  should  glorify  the 
men  who  have  revolted  from  prevalent  traditions,  and 
in  spite  of  the  schools,  have  made  new  discoveries  or 
initiated  new  movements.  Some  of  us,  indeed,  are 
apt  to  denounce  the  schools  and  the  whole  academic 
system  as  altogether  useless,  and  even  those  who  might 
be  willing  to  admit  that,  as  Lady  Dilke  has  very  truly 
observed,  “the  very  antagonists  of  this  system  have 
owed  to  its  method  and  discipline  more  than  half  their 
practical  strength,”  may  find  it  hard  to  be  wholly  just 
to  an  artist  of  academic  mind  and  of  classical  ten- 
dencies and  training.  Such  an  artist  was  Paul 
Baudry,  a shining  example  of  what  the  schools  and 
the  governmental  encouragement  of  art  can  produce, 
in  the  normal  and  regular  course  of  their  action,  if 
the  right  material  be  given  them  to  work  upon.  His 
education,  his  opportunity,  and  his  reward  were  given 
him  by  the  state ; and  if  the  organisation  of  art  under 
state  control,  as  it  exists  in  France,  had  resulted  in 
nothing  else,  the  decorations  in  the  Foyer  of  the  Paris 
Grand  Opera  might  almost  serve  as  its  sufficient 
justification. 


198 


194 


BAUDRY 


Baudry’s  biographer,  M.  Charles  Ephrussi,  tells  us 
that  Paul- Jacques- Aime  Baudry,  the  third  of  twelve 
children  of  a Breton  sabot-maker,  was  bom  on  Novem- 
ber S7,  1828,  at  Roche-sur-Yon,  in  Vendee.  His 
father  was  a great  lover  of  music  and  wished  Paul 
to  become  a professional  musician,  but  the  child’s 
vocation  for  painting  was  early  apparent,  and  at  the 
age  of  thirteen  he  began  the  serious  study  of  his  art 
under  the  direction  of  Antoine  Sartoris,  the  drawing- 
master  of  the  town,  an  artisan  whose  love  for  painting 
had  pushed  him  into  the  practice  of  art,  and  who  had 
managed  to  secure  two  years’  instmction  in  Paris. 
With  him  Baudry  remained  three  years,  and  toward 
this  humble  instmctor  he  always  exhibited  a profound 
gratitude.  To  the  end  of  Baudry’s  life  the  name  of 
Sartoris  figured  beside  that  of  Drolling,  in  the  cata- 
logue of  the  Salon,  after  that  of  their  pupil.  The 
young  man’s  progress  was  rapid,  and  Sartoris  soon 
felt  that  he  could  teach  him  no  more.  Study  in  Paris 
was  necessary  for  him,  and,  on  the  recommendation  of 
Sartoris  and  other  friends,  the  town  of  Roche-sur- 
Yon  voted  him  a pension  of  six  hundred  francs,  which 
was  shortly  added  to  by  the  Council-General  of  La 
Vendee.  He  entered  the  studio  of  Drolling  in  1844, 
and  was  soon  recognised  as  the  head  of  the  school. 
He  lived  upon  the  meagerest  of  fare,  and  worked  with 
indomitable  industry  and  energy,  determined  to 
deserve  the  encouragement  he  had  received,  and  his 
student  years  were  marked  by  a succession  of  prizes 


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and  medals  until  in  1847,  he  was  received  en  loge  for 
the  Prix  de  Rome,  and  was  awarded  a premier  second 
grand  prix  before  he  was  quite  nineteen  years  old. 
The  Grand  Prix  of  that  year  was  Lenepveu,  who  was 
given,  after  Baudry’s  death,  his  unfulfilled  commission 
for  the  decorative  paintings  for  the  Pantheon  com- 
memorating the  life  and  death  of  Jeanne  d’Arc. 
Baudry’s  pension  was  again  augmented,  and  with 
renewed  confidence  he  went  on  with  the  struggle  to- 
ward the  first  goal  of  his  ambition,  that  Grand  Prix 
which,  in  the  absence  of  any  private  resources,  was 
so  necessary  to  him.  He  failed  twice,  but  succeeded 
the  third  time,  and  from  1850  the  nation  took  the 
place  of  the  town  and  the  department  as  his  patron. 
The  Prix  de  Rome  can  seldom  have  fallen  to  so  young 
a man,  and  when  he  revisited  Rome  in  1864  as  one  of 
the  foremost  of  French  artists  he  found  men  of  his 
own  age  among  the  pensionnaires  of  the  Villa 
Medici. 

The  five  years  that  Baudry  spent  in  Rome  left  a 
deep  mark  upon  all  his  after  work.  Curiously  enough 
the  Institute,  which  had  sent  him  there,  presumably, 
that  he  might  study  the  old  masters,  was  offended 
when  the  influence  of  Raphael  and  Correggio  began 
to  be  noticeable  in  his  painting,  but  the  public  was  of 
another  mind.  From  Rome  he  sent  home  to  Paris 
successively  “Theseus  in  the  Labyrinth,” — ^which  he 
afterwards  destroyed, — “Jacob  and  the  Angel,” 
“Fortune  and  the  Child,”  now  in  the  Luxembourg, 


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the  copy  of  Raphael’s  “Jurisprudence”  which  is  pre- 
served in  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts,  and  the  “ Punish- 
ment of  a Vestal,”  now  in  the  museum  at  Lille.  The 
“ Fortune  ” and  the  “ Vestal,”  together  with  some 
smaller  pictures  and  portraits,  were  exhibited  in  the 
Salon  of  1857,  shortly  after  his  return  to  France, 
and  his  success  was  instantaneous  and  complete.  He 
was  awarded  a medal  of  the  first  class  by  the  jury, 
and  was  acclaimed  a leader  among  the  younger  artists. 
Commissions  flowed  in  upon  him,  and  the  next  few 
years  brought  forth  a number  of  portraits  and  easel 
pictures,  of  which  “ The  Wave  and  the  Pearl  ” (1863) 
is  the  most  exquisite,  and  marks  the  apogee  of  his 
early  manner.  Meanwhile  he  had  begun  his  career  as 
a decorator  by  a series  of  works  for  private  patrons. 
In  the  best  of  these,  “ The  Five  Cities  of  Italy,”  exe- 
cuted in  1861,  for  the  Due  de  Galliera,  the  future 
Baudry  is  already  discernible.  In  this  year  also  he 
was  made  a Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 

When  the  building  of  the  Paris  Grand  Opera  was 
undertaken  Baudry  was  naturally  marked  out  for  a 
great  share  in  its  decoration,  for  the  only  man  who 
might  have  done  it  as  well,  Puvis  de  Chavannes, 
though  his  senior  by  four  years,  was  as  yet  compara- 
tively unknown.  The  commission  for  the  work  in 
the  foyer  was  given  to  Baudry  in  1865,  but  he  had 
been  informed  of  the  probability  of  his  receiving  it 
by  his  comrade  of  Roman  days.  Gamier,  the  architect, 
a year  in  advance,  and  had  gone  to  Rome  to  prepare 


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197 


for  the  great  work  by  making  a series  of  full-sized 
copies  from  Michelangelo’s  frescoes  in  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  In  1868  he  went  to  London  to  copy  the 
Hampton  Court  cartoons,  and  in  1870  to  Italy  again, 
still  with  his  work  for  the  Opera  in  view.  In  1869 
he  was  created  an  Officer  of  the  Legion,  and  in  1870, 
during  his  absence,  he  was  elected  to  the  Institute 
without  having  announced  his  candidacy,  made  the 
customary  visits,  or  taken  any  steps  whatever  to 
secure  the  result.  In  the  same  year  he  volunteered 
for  the  defence  of  his  country,  and  carried  a musket 
through  the  war  with  Germany.  After  the  conclu- 
sion of  peace  and  the  putting  down  of  the  Commune 
he  returned  to  his  task,  and  for  three  years  lived  in  the 
opera  house  itself,  partly  from  motives  of  economy, 
shut  up  with  his  work  and  seeing  no  one.  The  great 
paintings  were  finally  completed  and  exhibited  at  the 
Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts  in  1874.  ‘‘  The  success  was 

splendid.  The  French  school  counted  another  great 
master,”  For  the  work  of  eight  years  he  was  paid 
140,000  francs,  and  a great  part  of  it  he  did  literally 
for  nothing,  to  prevent  its  being  given  to  another 
artist  with  the  consequent  destruction  of  the  unity  of 
his  great  decorative  scheme. 

Worn  out  with  his  long  labour,  he  started  for  a 
tour  of  Egypt  and  Greece,  from  which  he  returned  a 
Commander  of  the  Legion,  and  “ the  most  famous  and 
the  poorest  of  the  artists  of  France.”  In  1876  he 
was  commissioned  to  decorate  the  Pantheon  with  a 


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series  of  pictures  from  the  life  of  Jeanne  d’Arc,  and 
accepted  the  task  with  enthusiasm.  He  had  long 
thought  of  the  subject,  and  was  profoundly  interested 
in  the  great  French  heroine.  Unfortunately,  he  could 
not  afford  to  devote  his  time  to  work  so  wretchedly 
paid  (the  whole  series  was  to  bring  in  only  50,000 
francs),  and  he  was  obliged  to  accept  other  com- 
missions for  portraits,  easel  pictures,  and  minor 
decorations.  A series  of  brilliant  canvases  was  the 
result,  but  that  which  he  intended  for  the  crowning 
work  of  his  life  was  never  begun.  A few  of  the  more 
notable  of  his  later  works  are  the  portrait  of  General 
Comte  de  Palikao,  1876 ; the  “ Glorification  of  the 
Law”  for  the  Court  of  Cassation,  exhibited  in  the 
Salon  of  1881,  and  unanimously  awarded  the  medal  of 
honour  (then  for  the  first  time  given  by  vote  of  all  the 
qualified  exhibitors);  the  “St.  Hubert”  for  Chan- 
tilly, and  the  two  ceilings  for  the  houses  of  W.  H.  and 
Cornelius  Vanderbilt,  in  1882;  the  portrait  of  Mme. 
Bernstein  and  her  son,  1886;  and  his  last  great  work, 
“ L’Enlevement  de  Psyche,”  for  Chantilly,  1884. 
To  these  should  be  added  the  “ Diana  driving  away 
Love,”  of  which  the  first  version  was  executed  at  Rome 
in  1864,  but  which  he  repeated  in  1877,  in  1879,  and 
in  1882.  He  died  of  heart  disease  in  the  fifty-eighth 
year  of  his  age,  on  the  17th  of  January,  1886. 

One  is  constantly  reminded  of  Raphael  when  one 
is  contemplating  the  life  and  work  of  Paul  Baudry, 
not  merely  because  of  the  great  influence  of  the 


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199 


Italian  of  the  Renaissance  upon  the  modem  French- 
man, but  because  of  the  striking  similarity  of  the 
two  artistic  natures.  Both  were  men  of  indomitable 
energy  and  vast  industry;  both  were  brilliantly  pre- 
cocious, and  rapidly  acquired  all  the  knowledge  of 
their  epoch;  both  were  of  the  true  classical  temper, 
preferring  beauty  to  character  and  perfection  to  in- 
dividuality. Like  Raphael,  Baudry  was  a man  of 
sweet  temper  and  sunny  nature,  and  like  Raphael  he 
was  entirely  devoted  to  his  art,  and  had  scarce  any 
other  life  than  his  work.  No  more  than  Raphael  was 
he  one  of  the  profoundly  personal  natures  in  whom 
the  man  seems  more  than  the  artist.  He  was  one  of 
those  absorbents,  of  whom  Raphael  is  the  chief,  whose 
work  is  rather  to  do  perfectly  what  every  one  else  has 
been  trying  to  do,  than  to  do  something  unlike  any- 
thing that  has  gone  before.  He  borrowed  from  Ra- 
phael and  from  the  antique  as  freely  as  Raphael  him- 
self borrowed  from  his  predecessors,  and  he  managed, 
like  Raphael,  to  stamp  his  own  seal  upon  what  l\e 
borrowed,  so  that  his  very  impersonality  has  a noble 
individuality.  It  would  be  impossible  to  take  any 
work  by  Baudry  for  the  production  of  any  other 
artist. 

Like  Raphael,  also,  Baudry  had  many  successive 
manners,  and  never  rested  in  any  one  acquired  style. 
Of  his  early  work,  before  he  went  to  Rome,  I know 
nothing  personally,  but  we  are  told  that  it  is  marked 
by  a certain  crude  and  almost  brutal  vigour  rather 


200 


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than  by  refinement  or  style.  His  first  envoi  de  Rome, 
the  “ Theseus,”  is  said  to  have  shown  the  influence  of 
Caravaggio.  In  his  second  envoi,  however,  the 
“Jacob  and  the  Angel,”  the  influence  of  Raphael 
begins  to  show  itself.  He  now  began  his  travels  over 
Italy,  filling  his  portfolios  with  studies  after  the  great 
masters,  and  the  effect  is  immediately  apparent  in  his 
work.  Correggio  made  a profound  and  lasting  im- 
pression upon  him,  and  the  “ Fortune  and  the  Child  ” 
is  a frank  imitation  of  Titian  with  a reminiscence  of 
Leonardo  in  the  expression  of  the  lovely  head.  In  the 
fourth  year  of  his  pension  he  was  obliged  by  the  rule 
to  make  a copy  after  an  old  master  containing  “ at 
least  three  figures”  and  it  is  characteristic  of  him 
that  he  should  have  chosen  the  Jurisprudence,”  thus 
giving  himself  eight  figures  to  do  instead  of  three. 
Raphael’s  “Jurisprudence”  is  the  perfect  work  pf 
the  perfect  time  of  that  master.  It  is  the  smallest 
of  the  four  great  frescoes  painted  in  the  Stanza  della 
Segnatura,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  Baudry,  has  “a 
breadth  of  style  and  execution  not  to  be  found  in  the 
‘ Disputa  ’ or  the  ‘ School  of  Athens.’  ” It  was  in 
copying  this  picture  that  Baudry  really  learned  his 
art.  “ In  the  silent  conversations  we  have  held  to- 
gether he  has  taught  me  the  secret  of  his  grace  and 
of  his  admirable  style,”  he  says,  and  again : “ How 

I love  him  since  I have  studied  him,  and  what  secrets 
of  harmony  and  of  colour  he  has  revealed  to  me! 
Blind,  or  rather  silly,  are  those  who  cannot  see  it.” 


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201 


Baudry  has  been  allowed  to  be  a charming  colourist 
even  by  not  over-enthusiastic  critics,  and  his  testi- 
mony to  the  colour  quality  of  Raphael  at  his  best  is 
noteworthy.  Not  only  did  the  study  of  Raphael 
involved  in  the  making  of  this  copy  influence  all  Bau- 
dry’s  production  thereafter,  but  reminiscences  of  thia 
special  picture  are  frequent  in  his  work,  from  the 
“Five  Cities  of  Italy”  to  the  “Glorification  of  the 
Law.” 

From  his  return  to  Paris  in  1856  to  his  death  the 
work  of  Baudry  may  be  divided  into  three  categories, 
and  into  three  periods.  He  painted  portraits,  easel 
pictures,  and  decorations,  and  he  painted  each  of  these 
in  three  different  manners.  Of  course  the  changes  of 
style  cannot  be  marked  off  accurately  as  having 
occurred  at  given  dates,  but  in  a general  view  they 
are  clearly  enough  apparent.  The  portraits  of  his 
first  period  are  marked  by  exquisite  and  accurate 
drawing,  by  profound  study  of  character,  and  by  an 
enamel-like  smoothness  and  unity  of  surface.  Two 
which  I remember  especially  are  those  of  Guizot  and  of 
Madeleine  Brohan.  That  of  the  celebrated  actress  is 
particularly  beautiful  and  neither  Holbein  nor  Ra- 
phael himself,  one  of  the  greatest  of  portrait-painters, 
ever  did  anything  more  perfect  or  more  impersonal, 
more  marked  by  the  suppression  of  visible  means  and 
the  entire  submission  of  the  artist  to  the  individuality 
of  the  sitter.  The  easel  pictures  of  the  same  period 
are  less  ivory-hard  than  the  portraits,  are  richer  and 


BAUDRY 


fuller  in  colour  and  texture,  but  they  are  marked  by 
the  same  reserve  and  mystery  of  technique.  The  best 
of  them  is  “The  Wave  and  the  Pearl,”  which  remains, 
perhaps,  the  most  perfect  painting  of  the  nude  done 
in  the  last  century.  The  unconventional  grace  of 
attitude,  the  plump  slenderness  of  the  firm  young 
body,  the  charming  head  with  its  side-long  glance  over 
the  dimpled  shoulder — one  sees  these  first,  and  then 
one  notes  the  infinite  sauvity  of  subtle  line,  the  abso- 
lute but  unostentatious  science  of  the  drawing,  the 
nacreous  loveliness  of  the  colour,  the  solid  yet  mys- 
terious modelling,  almost  without  light  and  shade,  the 
perfection  of  delicate  surface.  These  things  make  it 
a pure  masterpiece,  and  one  feels  that  it  is  possible  to 
do  something  different — it  is  not  possible  to  do  any- 
thing better.  The  decorations  of  this  period  are  pre- 
ludes to  the  Opera,  and  hardly  require  special 
consideration. 

The  middle  period  of  Baudry’s  work  includes  the 
decoration  of  the  Opera  and  a number  of  portraits, 
but  no  easel  pictures  of  importance,  unless  the  first 
version  of  the  “Diana,”  painted  at  Rome  while  the 
copies  of  Michelangelo  were  in  progress,  be  counted. 
I have  not  seen  it  and  cannot  speak  of  its  quality,  but, 
at  the  time,  it  was  thought  to  show  a falling  off  from 
previous  work.  The  portraits  show  a growing 
breadth  of  style  and  handling,  are  often  of  superb 
dignity  and  great  power,  splendidly  rich  in  sombre 
tone.  One  I remember — the  name  of  the  sitter  has 


BAUDRY 


quite  escaped  me — ^which  seemed  almost  a fitting  com- 
panion to  Titian’s  “ Man  with  the  Glove.”  The  first 
fruits  of  Baudry’s  assiduous  study  of  Michelangelo 
are  shown  in  the  ceiling  painted  for  Count  Henckel- 
Donnersmarck  in  1865.  It  is  distinctly  Michelan- 
gelesque,  and  the  heavy-limbed  figures  seem  too  colos- 
sal for  the  space  they  occupy.  This  was  but  a 
temporary  phase  of  his  work,  however.  The  “ Muses  ” 
of  the  Opera  show  the  same  influence  in  a much  modi- 
fied form  and  thereafter  it  is  seen  no  more. 

The  decorations  of  the  Grand  Opera  must  always 
remain  Baudry’s  greatest  work  and  his  principal  title 
to  permanent  fame.  The  original  commission  was  for 
the  twelve  compositions  in  the  voussures  or  vaulting 
panels,  and  the  ten  ovals  representing  the  music  of 
various  nations.  To  these  Baudry  himself  demanded 
and  obtained  the  right  of  adding,  without  compensa- 
tion, the  three  great  ceiling  panels  and  the  eight 
panels  of  the  “Muses,”  that  his  scheme  might  be 
completely  carried  out  and  the  decorative  unity  of 
the  whole  assured.  The  work  thus  comprises  thirty- 
three  separate  compositions,  all  of  them  large  and 
some  vast,  and  it  is  calculated  that  the  whole  space 
covered  with  painting  comprises  five  hundred  square 
meters.  In  size  and  completeness  alone  this  great 
scheme  of  decoration  is  the  most  important  carried 
out  by  one  man  since  the  great  days  of  the  Renais- 
sance. Its  intellectual  merit  in  the  choice  and  treat- 
ment of  subject  is  very  great  and  has  been  much 


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enlarged  upon.  Neither  its  size  nor  its  meaning  is, 
however,  what  we  are  now  concerned  with.  Its  purely 
artistic  merit  is  what  we  have  to  consider,  and  that 
merit  is  of  a very  high  order.  In  this  work  Baudry 
has  shown  himself  one  of  the  great  masters  of  decora- 
tive art,  though  his  method  bears  little  resemblance  to 
that  of  our  other  great  modern  decorator,  Puvis  de 
Chavannes.  His  problem  was,  in  the  first  place, 
altogether  different.  These  paintings  are  intended 
for  an  opera  house,  where  elegance  and  richness  are 
more  appropriate  than  austerity,  and  they  are  sur- 
rounded by  heavy  architectural  ornaments  and  rich 
gilding  rather  than  by  flat  gray  walls.  If  he  had 
lived  to  execute  his  designs  for  the  Pantheon,  the  two 
greatest  decorators  of  the  century  would  have  met 
upon  the  same  ground,  and  the  result  of  the  competi- 
tion would  have  been  interesting  to  see.  As  it  is  it 
may  be  said  that  each  triumphantly  solved  the  prob- 
lem set  him,  and  that  Puvis’s  “ St.  Genevieve  ” is  as 
thoroughly  in  place  in  the  Pantheon  as  is  Baudry’s 
“Judgment  of  Paris”  in  the  Opera.  Baudry’s 
reliance  is,  like  that  of  the  Florentines,  on  balanced 
linear  composition  and  perfection  of  drawing.  Light 
and  shade  is  only  so  far  developed  as  is  necessary  for 
the  explanation  of  form,  and  colour,  while  charming, 
is  strictly  subordinated.  This  subordination  of  light 
and  shade  and  of  colour  assures  a suflScient  decorative 
flatness,  while  the  rhythm  of  beautiful  lines  becomes 
the  principal  decorative  element,  and  makes  of  each 


baudry:  'pastoral  music 


BAUDRY 


205 


picture  a pattern  far  finer  and  more  subtle  than  pure 
ornament.  Of  his  power  of  linear  composition  no 
better  example  could  be  given  than  that  known  as 
‘‘  The  Shepherds  ” or  “ Pastoral  Music,”  an  admira- 
ble piece  of  ordered,  balanced,  supple  line,  concise  yet 
free  and  graceful,  full  of  tranquil  dignity  and  beauty. 
In  strong  contrast  is  “The  Assault”  or  “Military 
Music,”  in  which  a system  of  abrupt  and  angular 
lines,  radiating  from  the  centre  and  forcing  the 
figures  out  to  the  edges  of  the  frame  as  if  a bomb  had 
exploded  in  the  midst  of  them,  expresses  the  fury  of 
war  as  completely  as  idyllic  peace  is  expressed  by  the 
concentric  curves  and  pyramidal  grouping  of  “The 
Shepherds.”  The  larger  and  more  crowded  composi- 
tions of  the  two  great  panels  at  the  ends  of  the  hall 
are  as  masterly  as  any  of  the  smaller  ones,  and  the 
whole  series  demonstrates  that  in  classical  composition 
Baudry  has  had  few  equals.  Of  his  power  of  signifi- 
cant drawing  one  must  speak  in  terms  of  highest 
praise,  and  I am  inclined  to  place  him  very  high  indeed 
among  the  few  great  delineators  of  the  human  figure. 
I do  not  know  why  the  world  has  been  apt  to  consider 
colour  as  a gift  and  drawing  as  only  an  acquirement. 
Mere  correctness  of  proportion  and  measurement  may 
indeed  be  learned  by  any  one  with  a true  eye  and  suffi- 
cient industry,  but  the  gift  of  significant  line  is  one 
of  the  rarest  of  artistic  endowments,  and  is  compati- 
ble, as  Michelangelo  has  shown  us,  with  the  neglect 
of  mere  accuracy.  Baudry’s  drawing  is  not  always 


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accurate,  but  it  is  intelligent  and  significant  in  the 
highest  degree,  and  is  instinct  with  what  we  know  as 
style.  The  original  crayon  studies  for  the  figures  of 
the  Opera  decorations  have  been  published,  and  are 
lessons  forever.  Look,  for  instance,  at  the  marvellous 
rendering  of  the  action  of  the  Juno  for  “The  Judg- 
ment of  Paris,”  at  the  long  lines  of  the  back  and  the 
sharp  turn  of  the  hip ; see  how  each  point  of  structure 
is  accounted  for,  each  bone  and  muscle  placed,  yet 
without  exaggeration  or  over-insistence ; note  the 
unexpectedness  of  the  forms  brought  out  and  yet 
their  supreme  beauty  and  graciousness,  the  elegance 
of  every  line  and  the  living  grace  of  the  whole  elastic 
figure.  This  is  drawing  as  the  great  masters  of  line 
have  understood  it — as  no  one  save  Baudry,  in  our 
day,  has  practised  it. 

After  the  completion  of  the  Opera,  Baudry  re- 
turned to  his  easel  pictures  and  portraits,  but  his 
work  is  now  very  different  from  that  of  his  early 
period.  M.  Jules  Breton  seems  to  consider  it  inferior 
and  says : “ The  fine  even  colouring  of  his  earlier 

pictures  had  crumbled  into  sharp,  dry  hatchings 
. . . his  painting,  properly  speaking,  was  on  the 
decline.”  This  seems  to  me  an  error,  or,  at  least  an 
overstatement.  The  habit  of  working  on  a large 
scale  and  over  vast  surfaces  had  undoubtedly  broken 
up  the  united  texture  of  his  early  work  and  given  his 
brush  a new  freedom.  Never  again  was  he  to  produce 
such  a mysteriously  perfect  piece  of  painting  as 


BAUDRY 


207 


“ The  Wave  and  the  Pearl.”  But  one  might  as  well 
object  to  the  later  work  of  Velasquez  or  Hals  or  Titian 
as  to  that  of  Baudry.  The  technique  is  different,  but 
it  is  quite  as  wonderful  as  ever,  and  in  some  of  his 
latest  works  reaches  the  virtuosity  of  a Stevens  or  a 
Boldini.  One  of  the  first  things  he  painted  after  the 
completion  of  the  great  decorations  was  the  portrait 
of  the  Comte  de  Palikao  standing  by  his  horse  in  the 
open  air,  as  elegant  as  a Van  Dyck,  as  free  as  a Ve- 
lasquez, and,  besides,  a thoroughly  modern  study  of 
light.  It  puzzled  the  beholders  at  the  time,  but 
triumphed  splendidly  at  the  Universal  Exposition  in 
1889.  The  later  versions  of  the  “ Diana  driving  away 
Love”  are  painted  with  the  same  sweeping  freedom, 
with  all  the  cleverness  of  the  cleverest  modem,  but 
retain  the  sense  of  form  and  the  structural  knowledge 
which  were  Baudry’s  alone.  The  beautiful  action 
of  this  figure  is,  indeed,  one  of  Baudry’s  most  happy 
inventions — or  discoveries.  Still  later  the  drawing 
also  is  a little  sacrificed,  and  even  the  study  of  char- 
acter in  portraiture,  but  the  dazzling  brilliancy  of 
handling,  and  the  charm  of  light  and  colour,  become 
more  and  more  pronounced.  The  later  decorations 
show  the  same  change,  and  suffer  from  it,  in  my 
opinion,  more  than  the  smaller  works.  The  gravity 
of  monumental  art,  which  is  somewhat  lacking  in  the 
“Glorification  of  the  Law,”  is  not  altogether  com- 
pensated for  by  the  gaiety  of  facile  execution  or  the 
dainty  charm  of  colour  that  satisfy  us  in  the  little 


208 


BAUDRY 


“ Truth,”  or  the  delicious  portraits  of  Madame 
Bernstein  and  her  son,  and  of  the  boy  Louis  de 
Montebello. 

Take  him  for  all  in  all  Paul  Baudry  was,  perhaps, 
the  most  rounded  and  complete  of  the  painters  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  He  was  the  greatest  stylist,  the 
greatest  draughtsman,  and  the  greatest  master  of 
composition,  and  if  he  had  not  been  one  of  the  great- 
est decorators  he  would  still  have  been  one  of  the 
greatest  portrait-painters  of  his  time.  He  was  a fine 
colourist  and  he  became  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of 
technicians.  With  all  this  he  has  been  somewhat 
grudgingly  praised  by  critics,  and  his  influence  upon 
other  painters  has  been  comparatively  slight  because 
he  was  not  one  of  the  great  original  forces  of  modern 
art.  It  did,  indeed,  require  a certain  originality  to 
found  one’s  art  upon  Raphael  at  a time  when  Ra- 
phael’s work  was  little  understood,  and  it  is  also  true 
that  there  is  an  unmistakable  air  of  the  nineteenth 
century  about  everything  he  did,  so  that  even  his  mas- 
sive muses  are  essentially  parisiennes;  still  he  was  not 
a Millet,  nor  even  a Manet,  not  a profound  poet  or  a 
revolutionary  initiator  of  a new  movement.  His  art 
is  essentially  academic  and  of  the  Institute,  but  it  is 
so  accomplished  that  compared  with  it  that  of  most 
of  our  modern  artists  seems  bungling  and  clumsy  or 
thin  and  flippant.  Such  perfection  as  he  achieved 
is  perhaps  even  rarer  than  striking  individuality. 
There  are  always  original,  unbalanced,  one-sided 


BAUDRY 


209 


artists,  and  some  of  them  do  some  one  thing  supremely 
well  and  mark  a new  epoch  or  found  a new  school. 
We  are  right  to  admire  them,  but  we  may  also  admire 
the  artist  who  is  wholly  sound  and  sane  and  classic 
and  whose  only  aim  is  the  creation  of  beauty. 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


Though  he  died  in  1898,  an  old  man  covered 
with  honours,  Puvis  de  Chavannes  is  still  one 
of  the  most  vital  influences  of  contemporary 
art,  still  a leader  of  the  young  school,  still  one  of  the 
most  discussed  and  criticised  of  artists.  It  is  worth 
some  pains  to  try  to  understand  such  a man,  and 
whoever  would  study  him  aright  should  visit  the  little 
provincial  museum  at  Amiens.  Much  of  his  finest 
work  is  in  Paris,  and  several  other  French  cities  and 
one  American  city  possess  important  paintings  by 
him,  but  only  in  Amiens  is  there  a series  of  great  deco- 
rations by  him  beginning  with  almost  his  earliest  effort 
in  this  line,  following  with  the  rapidly  maturing  works 
of  the  next  few  years,  in  which  the  formation  and 
growth  of  his  method  and  style  are  plainly  to  be 
traced,  and  ending  with  a work  of  his  full  matur- 
ity. Nowhere  else  in  the  world  can  you  find  such 
material  for  the  study  of  the  aims  and  methods  of  one 
of  the  two  greatest  artists  in  a great  branch  of  art 
that  the  nineteenth  century  produced. 

I have  called  decoration  a great  branch  of  art;  I 
might,  perhaps,  have  called  it  the  greatest  of  all. 
This  is  a realistic  age,  and  the  easel-picture  has  been 

210 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


211 


its  most  characteristic  artistic  production.  For  many, 
a painting  had  come  to  seem  a record  of  fact,  differing 
only  a little  from  a photograph,  and  was  thought  of 
as  a thing  isolated  and  portable,  a thing  per  se,  and 
only  degraded  when  it  was  forced  into  service  and 
subordinated  to  an  architectural  whole.  We  expected 
painters  to  produce  for  us  works  of  art  which  should 
have  no  relation  to  anything  else,  which  should  be 
whole  and  self-sufficing;  and  then  we  proceeded  to 
put  these  works  of  art  together  in  a gallery,  where  each 
one  fought  with  all  the  others,  and  a thousand  con- 
flicting relations  were  at  once  established.  It  was  not 
so  that  art  was  understood  in  the  ages  of  great  pro- 
duction. In  Greece  each  statue  was  destined  for  a 
given  pediment  or  a given  niche ; in  Italy  each  picture 
frescoed  a given  wall,  or  was  an  altarpiece  for  a par- 
ticular altar.  The  artist  might  carve  the  front  of 
the  Parthenon  or  paint  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine,  or 
he  might,  as  Benvenuto  did,  ornament  a salt-cellar  or 
twist  the  handle  of  a dagger  or  a spoon ; but  his  art 
was  always  art  in  service — it  was  always  the  decoration 
of  something  which  might  exist  without  its  aid. 

All  art  is,  indeed,  in  a sense,  decorative.  Facts 
and  the  records  of  facts  are  but  the  raw  material  of 
art;  the  art  itself  is  in  the  arrangement.  It  is  har- 
mony and  order  that  make  art,  whether  the  harmony 
be  that  of  line  or  colour  or  light  and  shade ; only  the 
easel-painter  is  given  a piece  of  canvas  to  decorate 
with  ordered  lines  and  colours,  and  must  limit  his  har- 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


212 

mony  to  that,  with  such  help  as  his  gilt  frame  may 
give  him, — he  must  trust  to  chance  for  everything 
else, — whereas  to  the  decorator,  properly  so  called,  a 
whole  church  or  a whole  palace  is  one  great  work  of 
art,  of  which  his  picture  is  a part  only ; and  instead  of 
confining  himself  within  the  frame,  he  has  to  harmonise 
what  he  does  with  the  whole  about  it.  A more  difficult 
problem,  but  not  without  its  advantages.  For,  the 
work  once  done,  there  it  is  forever  in  the  light  it  was 
painted  for  and  in  the  surroundings  it  was  meant  to 
fit,  and  not  at  the  mercy  of  the  chance  contrasts  of 
the  exhibition  or  the  gallery,  where  each  musician 
plays  his  own  tune,  with  the  natural  result  of  clash 
and  discord.  If  we  have  begun  to  understand  and 
to  practise  this  larger  style  of  art  again  it  is  largely 
owing  to  the  life-work  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes. 

Pierre-Cecile  Puvis  de  Chavannes  was  bom  at 
Lyons  on  December  14,  1824.  His  family  is  a very 
old  one,  which  can  trace  its  authentic  history  as 
far  back  as  1152.  One  of  his  ancestors  married 
Catherine  de  Coligny,  who  belonged  to  the  same  family 
as  the  great  admiral.  Puvis  was  the  second  artist  of 
his  race,  for  the  Louvre  contains  a landscape  called 
“ The  Shepherds,”  by  Pierre-Domachin,  Sieur  de 
Chavannes,  who  was  received  into  the  Academy  in 
1709,  and  died  in  1744,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two 
years.  The  family  takes  its  name  from  its  place  of 
origin,  Chavannes-sur-Suran,  commune  of  the  canton 
of  Treport. 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


213 


Puvis  began  the  study  of  art,  first  under  Henri 
Scheffer,  brother  of  the  more  celebrated  Ary  Scheffer, 
then  under  Couture,  but  did  not  stay  long  with  either 
master.  He  soon  began  to  work  independently,  and 
formed  his  taste  by  a journey  to  Italy.  After  many 
unsuccessful  efforts  in  different  styles  he  was  attracted 
to  the  study  of  decorative  art  by  the  sight  of  some 
blank  panels  in  the  dining-room  of  his  brother’s 
country  house.  One  of  the  pictures  he  painted  for 
them  was  afterward  enlarged  and  exhibited,  under  the 
title  of  “ Return  from  Hunting  ” in  the  salon  of  1859. 
Two  years  later  he  exhibited  the  “ War  ” and  “ Peace,” 
his  first  great  successes.  They  were  much  criticised, 
but  found  an  able  defender  in  Theophile  Gautier,  who, 
with  a discrimination  which  he  often  showed,  praised 
them  warmly.  They  received  the  award  of  a second- 
class  medal  from  the  jury,  and  were  bought  by  the 
state  and  subsequently  placed  in  the  museum  of  Amiens, 
where  they  now  are.  Like  all  his  decorations,  they 
are  painted  on  canvas  in  oil  colors  with  a mixture  of 
wax,  and  were  fastened  to  the  wall  with  white  lead. 
At  Amiens,  also,  is  most  of  the  work  of  the  next 
few  years — “ Work  ” and  “ Rest  ” painted  in  1863 ; 
“Ave,  Picardia  Nutrix”  in  1865;  and  two  small 
grisailles,  “Vigilance”  and  “Fancy,”  in  1866,  which 
completed  this  magnificent  series  of  early  works.  In 
1864  he  exhibited  at  the  Salon  an  “Autumn,”  for 
which  he  received  a third-class  medal.  At  the  Uni- 
versal Exposition  of  1867  he  was  represented  by 


^14 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


reductions  of  “ War,”  “ Peace,”  “ Work,”  and  “Rest,” 
and  by  another  canvas  “ Sleep.”  Here  he  gained 
another  third-class  medal,  and  was  given  the  red  ribbon 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  From  that  time  his  position 
was  assured,  his  victory  gained.  He  was  constantly  a 
member  of  the  Salon  juries  and  art  commissions,  and 
his  life  was  a series  of  new  triumphs  and  of  new  com- 
missions for  the  decoration  of  public  buildings.  Let 
us  now  pass  his  work  rapidly  in  review : 1868,  “ Play,” 
for  the  Cercle  de  I’Union  Artistique;  1869,  “ Massilia, 
Greek  Colony,”  and  “Marseilles,  Gate  of  the  East,” 
for  the  staircase  of  the  museum  of  Marseilles ; 1870, 
“ The  Beheading  of  John  the  Baptist,”  and  “ Magda- 
len in  the  Desert”;  1872,  “Hope”;  1873,  “Sum- 
mer”; 1874,  “Charles  Martel’s  Victory  over  the 
Saracens,”  for  the  hotel-de-ville  of  Poitiers;  1875, 
“ St.  Radegonde  Protecting  Education,”  for  the  same 
building,  and  a “ Fisherman’s  Family.”  In  1876  and 
1877  he  painted  his  well-known  decorations  for  the 
Pantheon,  dealing  with  the  infancy  of  St.  Genevieve, 
and  for  these  he  was  made  an  Officer  of  the  Legion.  In 
1879  he  exhibited  “ The  Prodigal  Son  ” and  “Girls  by 
the  Seashore,”  and  in  1880  “Ludus  pro  Patria,”  for 
Amiens  again,  where  it  stands  opposite  the  “ Ave,  Pi- 
cardia  Nutrix,”  painted  fifteen  years  before.  In  1881 
came  one  of  his  rare  easel-pictures,  “ The  Poor  Fisher- 
man,” which  now  hangs  in  the  gallery  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg, where  it  was  placed  in  1877,  his  “ Sleep”  being 
bought  for  the  museum  at  Lille  at  the  same  time.  In 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


215 


1882  he  exhibited  ‘‘Doux  Pays”  (a  title  I shall  not 
try  to  translate),  painted  for  the  house  of  M.  Leon 
Bonnat,  and  for  this  work  he  received  the  medal  of 
honour  by  vote  of  the  majority  of  qualified  exhibitors. 
In  1883  he  showed  “ The  Dream,”  “ A Woman  at  her 
Toilet,”  and  a ‘‘  Portrait  of  Mile.  M.  C.” ; and  in  1884 
the  first  of  a series  of  decorations  for  the  museum  of 
his  native  city  of  Lyons,  the  lovely  “ Sacred  Wood, 
dear  to  the  Arts  and  the  Muses,”  followed  in  1885  by 
Autumn,”  a variation  on  the  earlier  picture  of  that 
name,  and  in  1886  by  “ Antique  Vision,”  ‘‘  Christian 
Inspiration,”  and  “ The  Rhone  and  the  Saone,”  sym- 
bols respectively  of  the  form,  of  sentiment,  and  of 
force  and  grace.  The  next  two  years  were  occupied 
with  the  great  hemicycle  for  the  Sorbonne,  probably 
his  finest  work,  which  was  completed  in  1889,  in  which 
year  he  was  made  a Commander  of  the  Legion.  In 
1890  came  the  schism  out  of  which  grew  the  new 
Salon,  known  as  the  Champ-de-Mars,  but  properly 
called  the  Societe  Nationale  des  Beaux  Arts.  Puvis 
was  one  of  the  promoters  of  this  movement,  and,  upon 
the  death  of  Meissonier  in  1891,  became  its  presi- 
dent, which  office  he  held  until  his  death.  At  this 
new  Salon  he  exhibited,  in  1891,  “ Inter  Artes  et 
Naturam,”  for  the  Rouen  museum,  two  smaller  panels 
for  the  same,  “ Pottery  ” and  “ Ceramics,”  and  “ Sum- 
mer ” for  the  hotel-de-ville  of  Paris ; in  1892,  Win- 
ter,” also  for  the  hotel-de-ville;  and,  in  1894,  a whole 
series  for  the  prefect’s  staircase  in  the  same  building. 


216 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


the  ceiling  representing  “Victor  Hugo  Offering  his 
Lyre  to  the  City  of  Paris,”  while  allegories  of 
“ Patriotism,”  “ Charity,”  etc.,  fill  the  ten  pedentives. 
In  1895  he  also  exhibited  there  the  great  panel  now 
in  its  permanent  place  at  the  head  of  the  main  stair- 
way of  the  Boston  Public  Library.  To  this  bald  list 
of  his  exhibited  work  one  must  add  the  exhibition,  in 
many  cases,  of  the  cartoons  of  his  great  decorations 
before  the  colour  was  added;  the  “Victor  Hugo,”  for 
instance,  having  been  exhibited  thus  at  the  Champ-de- 
Mars  in  1893.  Among  his  latest  works  are  another 
painting  for  the  Pantheon,  dealing  with  the  later  life 
of  St.  Genevieve  and  the  panels  which  completed  the 
decorations  of  the  staircase  hall  of  the  Boston  Library. 

The  art  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  is  certainly  of  a 
sort  to  be  “ caviare  to  the  general.”  It  has  been  said 
to  be  the  negation  of  everything  that  has  always  been 
counted  art,  and  to  be  based  on  the  omissions  of  draw- 
ing, modelling,  light  and  shade,  and  even  colour.  On 
the  other  hand,  his  admirers  think  him  a master  of 
drawing  in  his  own  style,  and  certainly  a master  of 
colour.  To  explain  these  seeming  contradictions,  to 
show  the  reason  of  the  omissions  in  his  work,  which 
did  not  arise  from  ignorance,  but  were  distinctly  wil- 
ful, to  exhibit  his  qualities  and  give  a reason  for  his 
fame  is  the  task  I have  set  myself. 

To  begin  with,  one  must  remember  that  Puvis  is 
above  all  things  a decorator,  and  that  his  work  can- 
not be  properly  judged  except  in  place.  It  does  not 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


^17 


show  to  good  advantage  in  an  exhibition,  where  it  is 
necessarily  placed  in  contrast  with  works  done  on 
radically  different  principles.  I have  often  felt  dis- 
appointed with  a canvas  by  him  when  I saw  it  in  the 
Salon ; but  I have  seldom  seen  one  of  his  decorations 
in  the  surroundings  for  which  it  was  intended  without 
being  struck  with  its  fitness  and  the  perfection  with 
which  it  served  its  purpose.  His  “ Poor  Fisherman,” 
hung  as  an  easel-picture  among  the  other  easel-pictures 
in  the  Luxembourg,  seems  almost  ludicrous.  It  was  said 
of  Millet’s  peasants  that  they  were  too  poor  to  afford 
folds  in  their  garments;  here  the  poverty  seems  even 
more  abject,  and  drawing  and  colour  seem  equally  be- 
yond its  resources.  Transfer  the  contest  to  his  own 
ground,  however,  and  see  how  Puvis  in  turn  triumphs 
over  those  who,  in  a gallery,  utterly  crush  him  by  their 
greater  strength  and  brilliancy  of  technique.  Go  to 
the  Pantheon  and  look  at  the  mural  pictures  executed 
there  by  many  of  the  foremost  of  the  French  painters, 
and  I think  you  will  feel  that  there  is  just  one  of  them 
that  looks  like  a true  decoration,  exactly  fitted  for  the 
place  it  occupies  and  the  architecture  that  surrounds 
it,  and  that  that  one  is  Puvis  de  Chavannes’s.  By 
contrast  with  it,  CabanePs  looks  affected  and  Bonnat’s 
brutal,  and  many  of  the  others  become  entirely  insig- 
nificant. By  dint  of  sheer  strength  and  severity  of 
style  Laurens  holds  his  own  better  than  any  one  else ; 
but  his  great  compositions  do  not  keep  their  place  on 
the  wall,  as  do  those  of  Puvis,  but  cut  through  it.  In 


S18 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


colour  some  of  these  decorations  look  bright  and  gaudy, 
some  look  black  and  heavy;  in  form  some  look  pom- 
pous and  turbulent,  some  coarse  and  realistic,  some 
slight  and  languid.  Puvis’s  drawing,  with  all  its 
omissions,  is  austere  and  noble;  and  his  pale  tints, 
which  have  been  called  the  denial  of  colour,  look  here 
like  the  only  true  colour,  absolute  in  harmony,  a part 
of  the  building  itself — the  delicate  efflorescence,  as 
it  were,  of  the  gray  walls. 

Then  go  to  the  Sorbonne  and  look  at  the  hemicycle 
and  compare  the  effect  of  its  dead  tones  and  rude  draw- 
ing with  that  of  Galland’s  apparently  much  more 
learned  work  in  the  panels  of  the  ceiling,  and  ask 
yourself  if  the  result  is  not  the  same.  Of  course  it 
would  be  easy  to  explain  this  by  loose  talk  about  feel- 
ing and  sentiment,  much  as  some  critics  would  have 
us  believe  that  Millet  could  neither  draw  nor  paint,  yet 
was  a great  artist  all  the  same;  but  for  those  who 
believe  that  there  is  no  result  without  means,  that  the 
important  thing  is  not  what  the  artist  feels,  but  what  he 
expresses,  and  that  all  expression  must  be  by  technical 
methods,  so  that  there  is  no  good  art  which  is  not  tech- 
nically good,  such  an  explanation  is  no  explanation. 
The  feehng  and  the  sentiment  are  there,  and  I shall 
have  something  to  say  about  them  presently:  but 

they  have  not  got  upon  the  wall  by  miracle,  but  by 
the  use  of  means  to  that  end;  and  when  we  find  Puvis 
magnificently  successful  where  others  fail,  we  begin 
to  ask  ourselves  if  it  is  not,  perhaps,  because  of  his 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


ai9 


apparent  shortcomings,  rather  than  in  spite  of  them, 
that  he  succeeds,  and  whether  what  seem  like  technical 
defects  are  not  really,  for  his  purpose,  technical 
merits. 

If  this  is  the  case,  one  would  expect  to  find  that  the 
extreme  simplicity  of  his  later  manner  was  acquired, 
and  that  he  reached  it  by  a series  of  eliminations ; and 
one  has  only  to  go  to  the  museum  of  Amiens  to  con- 
vince one’s  self  of  the  truth  of  this  surmise.  “ War  ” 
and  “Peace,”  his  first  trials  at  grand  decorative  art, 
are  in  many  ways  singularly  unlike  the  later  Puvis. 
They  show  little  or  nothing  of  the  stiffness,  the  lack 
of  accent,  the  flatness  and  paleness  of  colour,  that  we 
associate  with  his  name.  They  are  the  work  of  a good 
pupil  of  the  schools,  showing  already  something  of 
decorative  talent,  but  rather  turbulent  in  composition, 
well  drawn  in  an  academic  style,  and  painted  with  full 
modelling  and  with  an  almost  overstrong  light  and 
shade.  They  are  not  the  work  of  a master  of  realism, 
but  they  are  realistic  in  method  up  to  a certain  point. 
There  is  in  one  of  them  the  back  of  a female  figure 
who  is  engaged  in  milking  a goat,  which  is  a very  good 
bit  of  flesh-painting,  white  and  plump,  with  redundant 
modelling  and  nearly  black  shadows.  The  bits  are 
better  painted,  in  their  way,  than  anything  he  has 
done  since,  but  the  general  effect  is  spotty  and  unquiet ; 
the  pictures  cut  through,  as  I have  said  of  Laurens’s, 
and  you  do  not  feel  the  flatness  of  the  wall.  The  great 
law  of  decoration  is  that  the  ornament  should  set  off 


220 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


and  embellish,  but  never  disguise,  the  thing  orna- 
mented; and  in  mural  painting  this  thing  is  the  wall, 
and  its  essential  qualities  of  flatness  and  extent  should 
be  accentuated,  not  concealed.  Look  now  at  the  pic- 
tures painted  two  years  later,  “Work”  and  “Rest,” 
and  see  how  Puvis  is  learning  this  lesson.  The  drawing 
is  even  more  able  than  in  “ War  ” and  “ Peace,” — look 
at  the  foreshortened  arm  of  the  wood-cutter  or  at  the 
herculean  figures  of  the  blacksmiths  in  “Work,”  or 
at  the  man  with  the  skin  about  his  loins  in  “ Rest,” — 
but  the  light  and  shade  is  much  more  subordinated, 
and  inside  their  outlines  the  figures  are  nearly  flat. 
The  landscape,  too,  is  kept  in  simpler  and  flatter 
masses,  though  with  some  beautiful  detail.  Indi- 
vidual figures  are  singularly  lovely.  The  mother 
with  her  child  in  “Work”  is  one  of  these;  and  the 
half-nude  stooping  woman  in  “ Rest,”  and  the  other 
one  who  is  seated  with  her  back  turned  to  the  spec- 
tator, are  as  classically  beautiful  as  the  work  of 
Ingres,  not  to  say  of  Raphael. 

If  you  have  once  studied  and  understood  these  com- 
positions, you  will  never  believe  that  the  apparent 
absence  of  form  in  Puvis’s  later  work  is  other  than 
intentional.  Take  one  step  more,  and  regard  the  vast 
composition  called  “ Ave,  Picardia  Nutrix,”  and  you 
will  begin  to  see  that  the  individual  beauties  of 
“Work”  and  “Rest”  are  too  prominent,  that  you 
have  noticed  too  much  this  back  or  the  other  arm,  and 
that  things  charming  in  themselves  may  nevertheless 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


be  prejudicial  to  the  general  effect — that  it  is  possible 
for  the  decoration  to  be  better  while  the  details  are  less 
noticeably  perfect.  In  this  great  composition  Puvis 
reached,  in  a way,  the  perfection  of  decorative  style. 
Nothing  could  be  finer  in  large  decorative  effect  and 
general  balance,  and  no  one  part  forces  itself  upon 
your  attention,  yet  individual  figures  are  exquisitely 
beautiful  in  their  simplified  and  adequate  drawing. 
The  colour  is  quiet  and  less  strong  than  in  earlier  work, 
but  not  without  fulness  and  beauty.  Opposite  it 
stands  the  “ Ludus  pro  Patria  ” of  fifteen  years  later, 
and,  looking  from  one  to  the  other,  one  may  be  par- 
doned for  wondering  if  the  process  of  simplification 
and  omission  has  not  gone  too  far.  The  effect  is  as 
fine,  perhaps,  as  in  the  “Ave,  Picardia  Nutrix,” — it 
could  not  well  be  finer, — but  one  misses  the  charm  of 
detail  and  the  refinement  of  form.  Discarding  our 
modern  realism,  Puvis  had  gone  back  as  far  as 
Raphael.  Was  it  necessary  to  go  further  Simplic- 
ity is  good,  but  does  it  entail  so  much  sacrifice  Per- 
haps not;  for  there  is  more  than  one  way  of  attain- 
ing decorative  effect,  and  Veronese  and  Raphael  were 
great  decorators  as  well  as  Giotto.  But  Puvis  de 
Chavannes  had  to  work  out  the  expression  of  his  own 
artistic  personality  as  well  as  to  form  a decorative 
style.  In  1865,  at  the  age  of  forty,  he  certainly  had 
not  yet  entirely  expressed  himself,  even  if  his  artistic 
character  was  then  fully  formed.  He  was  slow  of 
development,  and  had  been  a recognised  and  exhibit- 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


ing  artist  for  only  six  years.  He  had  done  beautiful 
work,  but  his  most  characteristic  work  was  yet  to  do. 

The  titles  of  two  of  his  great  paintings  at  Lyons 
give  a hint  of  the  elements  of  his  artistic  nature: 
“ Vision  Antique — Symbol  de  la  Forme  ” and  “ Inspir- 
ation Chretienne — Symbol  du  Sentiment,”  as  the  cata- 
logue of  the  Salon  of  1886  has  it.  A desire  for  Greek 
simplicity  and  grandeur,  a desire  for  Gothic  sentiment 
and  directness  of  expression — these  two  desires  have 
pushed  him  forward  to  new  and  ever  new  suppressions 
of  the  useless,  the  insignificant,  the  cumbrous.  He 
has  come  to  leave  out  not  only  every  detail  that  may 
interfere  with  the  effect  of  the  whole,  but  every  detail 
that  is  not  absolutely  necessary  to  the  expression  of 
the  whole.  He  has  eliminated  now  for  the  sake  of  per- 
fect clarity  and  now  for  the  sake  of  quaint  simplicity. 
On  the  classic  side  his  highest  expression  is  perhaps  in 
the  “ Sacred  Wood.”  Could  the  sense  of  idyllic  peace 
and  noble  tranquillity  be  more  perfectly  rendered?  At 
first  sight  the  drawing  may  seem  simple  and  almost 
childish,  and  one  may  think  it  easy  to  do  the  like ; but 
there  is  the  knowledge  of  a lifetime  in  these  grand 
lines,  and  they  are  simple  only  as  a Greek  statue  is 
simple.  There  are  antique  figures  that  look  almost 
wooden  in  their  lack  of  detail  and  of  fleshy  modelling, 
and  yet  in  which  the  more  you  know  the  more  you 
shall  And,  until  you  are  astonished  at  the  learning 
which  neglected  nothing  while  omitting  so  much. 

Giotto  and  Fra  Angelico  have  also  had  their  influ- 


ruvis  DE  CHAVANNES:  THE  SACRED  WOOD 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


22S 


ence  on  Puvis,  and  he  has  felt,  as  have  so  many  others, 
the  wonderful  effect  of  their  rigidly  simple  works. 
Doubtless  they  were  decorative  by  instinct,  and  simple 
because  they  knew  no  better,  and  left  out  facts  which 
they  had  never  learned  to  put  in.  Is  that  a reason 
why  a modern  paintei*  may  not  learn  their  lesson,  and 
knowingly  sacrifice  much  that  we  have  learned,  and 
which  they  never  knew,  for  the  sake  of  attaining  their 
clearness  and  directness  of  expression.?  The  system 
is  capable  of  abuse,  as  imitators  of  Puvis  have  shown 
us ; and  one  must  be  very  sincere  and  very  earnest  not 
to  make  it  an  empty  parody.  It  is  not  enough  to 
leave  out  the  unessential;  one  must  have  something 
essential  to  say.  Puvis,  at  his  best,  is  absolutely  grand 
and  absolutely  sincere ; and  while  he  sacrifices  much,  it 
is  for  the  sake  of  expressing  a lofty  and  pure  senti- 
ment in  a chastened  but  all  the  more  effective  style. 

But,  besides  the  admirer  of  the  Greeks  and  of  the 
primitives,  there  is  also  in  Puvis  the  man  of  the  latter 
end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  of  the  epoch  of  impres- 
sionism and  the  school  of  plein  air.  Nothing  is  more 
curious  in  the  history  of  art  than  the  way  in  which 
the  continued  study  of  chiaroscuro  has  brought  mod- 
ern painting  back  by  a devious  route  to  the  shadeless- 
ness  of  the  primitives.  The  early  painters  had  no 
light  and  shade,  as  the  Japanese  have  none.  After 
all  other  possibilities  of  light  and  shade  had  been 
exhausted,  the  artists  of  the  nineteenth  century  began 
to  study  the  model  out  of  doors  in  gray  daylight,  and 


224 


PITVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


lo!  the  effect  is  almost  that  of  the  early  frescoes,  but 
with  a difference.  There  is  almost  as  little  shade, 
but  there  is  more  study  of  values — that  is,  of  the  exact 
relative  degree  of  light  or  dark  of  each  object  as  com- 
pared with  other  objects  and  with  the  sky.  In  his 
use  of  this  truth  of  value  Puvis  has  added  something 
new  to  the  art  of  decorative  painting,  and  in  this  and 
in  his  study  of  landscape  he  is  singularly  modem. 
His  earlier  backgrounds  are  entirely  classic,  but  grad- 
ually landscape  occupies  a greater  and  greater  place 
in  his  work.  In  the  “ Ludus  pro  Patria  ” the  land- 
scape is  the  really  important  thing,  and  the  figures  are 
more  or  less  incidental ; and  this  is  even  truer  of  other 
compositions,  such  as  the  great  landscapes  called 
“ Summer  ” and  “ Winter,”  in  the  Paris  hotel-de-ville. 
In  these  the  figures  are  relatively  of  little  more  im- 
portance than  in  many  a painting  by  Corot,  and  they 
are  real  landscape  pictures,  as  I have  called  them.  Of 
course  depth  and  mystery  and  the  illusion  of  light  are 
not  sought  by  the  painter,  who  is  decorator  first  and 
landscapist  afterward ; the  foregrounds  are  much  con- 
ventionalised and  detail  is  eliminated.  Our  painter 
remains  the  simplifier  in  landscape  as  in  the  figure; 
but  the  essentials  of  landscape  are  studied  with  won- 
derful thoroughness  and  for  tone,  value,  colour,  and 
large  form,  no  modem  landscape  is  better  than  that  of 
Puvis  de  Chavannes.  In  the  vast  decoration  at  the 
head  of  the  staircase  in  the  museum  of  Rouen  a com- 
position otherwise  not  of  his  best  is  saved  by  the  splen- 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


225 


did  background,  in  which  the  panorama  of  the  city  of 
Rouen  and  the  islands  of  the  Seine  is  painted  with  all 
the  perfection  of  modem  landscape  art. 

Of  course  the  work  of  no  man  remains  always  at 
its  highest  level,  and  it  is  hard  for  any  one  to  escape 
the  defects  of  his  qualities.  After  the  long  training 
in  elimination,  what  wonder  if  the  master  sometimes 
seems  oblivious  of  the  things  he  has  so  striven  to 
subordinate,  and  if  there  are  passages  in  some  of  his 
latest  work  where  drawing  ceases  to  be  simplified  and 
becomes  falsified?  You  will  find  now  and  again  in 
his  pictures  an  ankle  or  a wrist  that  is  out  of  draw- 
ing, feeble,  and  boneless,  or  a body  that  is  ill  con- 
structed and  wrongly  put  together.  He  who  has 
learned  to  forget  has  sometimes  forgotten  too  much. 
And  his  manner  of  decoration,  admirably  suited  to 
the  buildings  for  which  he  most  often  worked,  is 
less  perfectly  adapted  to  the  rich  surroundings  of  his 
paintings  in  Boston.  One  may  imagine  that,  if  he 
had  seen  the  building  he  would  have  painted  them 
differently,  though  perhaps  he  was  too  old  to  change 
his  style.  At  any  rate  those  noble  compositions  seem 
to  me  less  satisfactory  in  their  relation  to  the  archi- 
tecture about  them  than  anything  else  he  did. 

A classicist  of  the  classicists,  a primitive  of  the 
primitives,  a modern  of  the  moderns,  Puvis  de  Cha- 
vannes  is,  above  all,  an  individual  and  original  artist, 
and  to  copy  his  methods  would  be  to  learn  ill  the  lesson 
he  teaches.  His  style  is  indissolubly  bound  up  with 


226 


PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 


his  message ; his  manner  is  the  only  one  fit  to  express 
what  he  alone  has  to  say.  It  would  be  but  an  ill- 
fitting,  second-hand  garment  for  another.  But  we 
may  learn  from  him  that  imitation  is  not  art,  that 
the  whole  is  greater  than  the  parts,  and  that  art  in 
service  may  be  the  freest  art  and  the  noblest.  All 
fact  and  all  research  are  grist  to  the  mill  of  art,  but 
they  are  not  bread  until  ground  and  kneaded  and 
baked.  The  day  of  mere  fact  and  of  mere  research 
is  nearly  ended,  and  the  isolated  easel-picture  is  no 
longer  the  only  form  of  art.  We  have  come  back  to 
the  old  true  notion  that  one  of  the  finest  things  art 
can  do  is  to  make  some  useful  thing  beautiful,  and  the 
highest  aim  of  many  of  our  painters  is  to  beautify 
the  walls  of  the  temples  and  palaces  of  the  people,  as 
the  highest  name  they  give  themselves  is  that  of 
“ decorator.” 


WHISTLER 


The  Whistler  Memorial  exhibition,  which  was 
held  in  Boston  in  February  and  March,  1904, 
was  a unique  occasion  for  the  study  of 
Whistler’s  art.  It  is  not  at  all  probable  that  so 
many  of  his  works  will  ever  again  be  got  together 
in  this  country,  or  that  so  ample  an  opportunity 
will  be  offered  for  seeing  him  in  almost  every  phase  of 
his  career  and  in  almost  every  branch  of  his  practice. 
The  exhibition  was,  indeed,  incomplete  in  one  impor- 
tant particular,  for  it  could  not  contain  three  or  four 
pictures  which  are  his  most  uncontested  successes. 
The  portrait  of  his  mother  is  in  the  Luxembourg 
Gallery,  that  of  Carlyle,  belonging  to  the  Corporation 
of  Glasgow,  had  been  lent  to  the  exhibition  of  the 
Royal  Scottish  Academy  then  open  in  Edinburgh. 
The  former  is  generally  admitted  to  show  a more  per- 
fect balance  of  the  qualities  personal  to  Whistler  with 
the  qualities  common  to  good  painters  of  all  times 
than  anything  else  he  produced,  and  is  therefore 
rightly,  in  a sense,  considered  his  masterpiece.  The 
“ Carlyle  ” is  of  nearly  the  same  time  and  of  much  the 
same  character.  Another  picture  which  is  thought 
by  those  who  care  especially  for  the  Whistlerianism 
of  Whistler  to  be  finer  than  either  of  these,  the  “ Miss 


2^8 


WHISTLER 


Alexander,”  was  also  in  the  exhibition  at  Edinburgh. 
These  omissions,  serious  to  be  sure,  were  almost  the 
only  ones  of  importance.  Of  Whistler’s  beginnings 
and  tentative  efforts  in  this  or  that  direction  before 
he  made  sure  of  that  which  was  to  be  his  own ; of  his 
early  and  charming  successes  in  the  first  works  that 
defined  clearly  his  artistic  personality ; of  the  later 
work,  entirely  personal,  in  which  his  peculiar  qualities 
become  more  defined  and  all  other  qualities  gradually 
cease  to  occupy  him,  there  were  abundant  examples. 
There  were  works  in  oil,  water-colour,  pastel ; there 
were  drawings,  lithographs,  etchings,  dry-points ; 
works  in  every  medium  which  he  used,  and  subjects 
of  every  kind  which  he  attempted;  portraits,  figure- 
subjects,  marines,  “nocturnes”;  and  works  of  every 
date  from  his  schoolboy  sketches  to  canvases  left  un- 
finished at  his  death.  Even  for  the  absent  portraits 
there  was  the  best  substitute  attainable  in  the  “Rosa 
Corder,”  which  is  of  about  their  date  and  nearly  of 
their  quality,  ranking  only  just  below  the  portrait  of 
the  artist’s  mother  in  the  opinion  of  some  connoisseurs, 
while  “ The  Fur  Jacket  ” marked  the  beginning  of 
the  transition  to  the  later  manner. 

Such  an  exhibition  naturally  incites  one  to  attempt 
some  sort  of  estimate  of  Whistler’s  artistic  produc- 
tion. It  is  too  early  for  any  definite  decision  as  to  its 
ultimate  value  or  as  to  this  artist’s  relative  rank  in 
the  hierarchy  of  artists,  ancient  and  modern ; but  one 
may  at  least  try  to  define  the  nature  of  his  art — to 


WHISTLER 


229 


show  what  it  was  and  what  it  was  not,  wherein  it  failed 
or  succeeded,  what  are  the  qualities  which  it  did  or  did 
not  possess.  I the  less  regret  my  inability  to  speak 
with  any  authority  as  to  Whistler’s  etchings,  because 
in  this  field  his  superiority  seems  to  be  less  contested. 
The  variation  of  judgment  seems  to  be  between  the 
opinion  that  he  was  the  greatest  etcher  since  Rem- 
brandt and  the  opinion  that  he  was  the  greatest  etcher 
that  ever  lived.  Mr.  Pennell,  who  has  strongly  stated 
the  latter  view,  begins  by  ruling  all  Rembrandt’s 
more  important  plates  out  of  the  count  as  “ pot- 
boilers,” a term  which  he  makes  synonymous  with 
compositions,  and  having  thus  eliminated,  almost  en- 
tirely, the  intellectual  and  imaginative  content  of 
Rembrandt’s  work,  bases  his  judgment,  as  far  as  one 
can  gather,  on  technical  considerations  alone.  One 
may  accept  expert  testimony  as  to  the  great  technical 
excellence  of  Whistler’s  practice  as  an  etcher  without 
feeling  that  this  alone  is  sufficient  to  secure  for  him, 
permanently,  the  supreme  position  assigned  him.  The 
inexpert  may  feel  that  his  art  is,  after  all,  of  the  same 
kind  and  quality  in  his  etchings  as  in  his  paintings, 
and  that  his  limitations  are  not,  in  themselves,  reasons 
for  praise,  until  it  is  proved  that  the  world  would  be 
gainer  by  the  absence  from  all  art  of  the  qualities  he 
had  not.  With  the  general  statement  that  Whistler’s 
etchings  are  to-day  considered  by  the  best  qualified 
judges  as  among  the  finest  ever  produced,  I am  will- 
ing to  leave  them,  and  to  give  my  attention  to  his 


230 


WHISTLER 


work  in  colour  as  represented  in  this  collection  and  in 
such  examples  as  I have  been  able  to  see  elsewhere. 

One  of  the  feelings  most  commonly  expressed  by 
visitors  to  Copley  Hall  was  that  of  surprise  at  the 
variety  of  the  work  shown ; and  the  pictures  certainly 
do  cover  a considerable  range  of  subject-matter. 
Yet  the  limitation  of  this  range  in  certain  directions 
seems  to  me  quite  as  remarkable  as  its  extent.  I do 
not  remember  a single  figure-picture  by  Whistler  in 
which  anybody  is  doing  anything  in  particular.  His 
figures  stand  or  sit  or  recline,  but  they  never  act. 
And  I do  not  remember  a landscape  with  a tree  in  it, 
or  a hill,  or,  except  in  one  or  two  early  works,  so  much 
as  a rock.  From  the  beginning  he  shows  a tendency 
toward  that  elimination  of  definite  subject  and  of 
definite  representation  which  he  justified  theoretically 
in  his  “ Ten  O’Clock,”  and  elsewhere — a tendency  to 
extract  from  nature  a few  notes  of  colour,  a few  lines 
and  shapes,  and  to  give  these  with  as  little  else  as 
possible.  This  tendency  affirms  itself  more  and  more 
until  it  assumes  its  extreme  form  in  some  of  the  later 
“ nocturnes,”  where  mist  and  darkness  so  disguise 
all  forms  that  definite  drawing  becomes  not  only  un- 
necessary, but  impossible,  or  in  some  of  those  pastels 
in  which  there  is  but  a hint  of  anything  actual,  a line 
or  two  and  a touch  or  two  of  colour,  suggested  by 
and  suggesting  something  in  nature,  but  imitating 
nothing.  The  nineteenth  century  has  been  an  epoch' 
of  shifting  and  uncertain  standards,  of  confused 


WHISTLER 


231 


efforts,  in  which  each  of  the  arts  has  been  reaching 
out  for  the  effects  proper  to  the  others.  Music  has 
become  more  and  more  pictorial,  and  has  attempted 
to  convey  definite  ideas  and  even  to  represent  external 
facts.  For  more  than  forty  years  Whistler  was 
engaged  in  the  effort  to  make  painting  resemble  pure 
music  as  nearly  as  possible — ^to  make  it  a matter  of 
tones  and  harmonies  and  intervals  of  intrinsic  beauty, 
acting  directly  upon  the  senses  and  the  nerves  inde- 
pendently of  the  intellect.  His  titles,  which  seem 
affected  and  are  certainly  inconvenient,  being  hard 
to  remember  and  helping  little  in  the  identification  of 
particular  pictures,  are  yet  perfectly  logical.  In 
practice  we  find  ourselves  neglecting  them,  and  seizing 
on  those  sub-titles  which  answer  our  purpose  better. 
But  the  musical  titles  he  chose  do  show  what  his  art 
constantly  tended  to  become,  even  if  they  do  not  an- 
swer in  all  respects  to  what  it  was.  It  would  seem 
that  painting  can  go  no  farther  in  the  direction  of 
Whistler’s  later  work  without  ceasing  altogether  to  be 
the  art  we  have  known  by  that  name. 

It  is  of  no  special  significance  that  Whistler  began 
the  serious  study  of  art  as  a pupil  of  Gleyre;  it  is 
much  more  significant  that  the  earliest  of  the  paint- 
ings exhibited  by  the  Copley  Society  shows  him  as  an 
admirer  of  Courbet.  This  is  a portrait  of  himself,  the 
head  only,  in  a large  black  felt  hat,  and  has  been 
frequently  reproduced.  It  was  painted  about  1859, 
and  the  rather  violent  light  and  shade,  with  black 


232 


WHISTLER 


shadows,  the  yellowish  tone  of  the  flesh,  and  the 
attempt  at  powerful  modelling,  point  unmistakably 
to  the  influence  under  which  it  was  produced.  Cour- 
bet’s vigorous  naturalism  and  rather  coarse  and 
boisterous  strength  is  as  unlike  the  spirit  of  Whistler 
as  anything  one  can  well  conceive;  but  Courbet  was 
the  most  prominent  opponent  of  the  old  academic  for- 
mulas at  the  precise  moment  when  Whistler  and 
Manet,  Whistler’s  elder  by  one  year,  were  beginning 
their  careers,  and  they  could  but  be  attracted  to  him. 
Both  impressionism  and  the  radically  different  art 
which  seems,  just  now,  to  be  superseding  it  as  an 
influence  on  the  younger  painters,  owe  their  origin,  in 
a manner,  to  Courbet.  He  proved  that  good  painting 
could  be  done  without  regard  to  “ the  rules,”  and  he 
set  students  to  looking  at  nature  for  themselves;  and 
we  are  therefore  indebted  to  him  for  more  than  his  own 
pictures.  His  direct  influence  on  Whistler,  however, 
was  not  very  deep  or  lasting.  Traces  of  it  may  per- 
haps be  found,  now  and  then,  in  the  pictures  painted 
within  the  next  few  years,  but  they  soon  disappear. 
Whistler  may  have  been  thinking  of  Courbet  when  he 
painted  the  Coast  of  Brittany  in  1861 — there  may  be 
a lingering  reminiscence  even  in  “ The  Blue  Wave  ” 
of  1862.  Later  than  that  one  can  find  no  specific 
resemblance  to  Courbet  in  Whistler’s  work.  For  still 
a year  or  two  he  occasionally  produces  a piece  of 
representation,  more  or  less  realistic  in  intention,  like 
“ The  Thames,”  in  1863,  but  by  this  time  he  is  finding 


WHISTLER 


235 


himself,  and  ceasing  to  attempt  the  things  which  it  is 
not  in  him  to  do. 

“ The  Coast  of  Brittany  ” and  ‘‘  The  Thames  ” are 
not  pictures  which  any  one  would  be  likely  to  care 
much  about  except  for  the  after-work  of  the  man  who 
painted  them.  They  are  interesting  because  he  did 
them,  but  they  are  not  beautiful.  It  is  different  with 
three  pictures  painted  in  1862,  “The  Blue  Wave,” 
“ The  Building  of  Westminster  Bridge,”  and  “ The 
White  Girl.”  Each  of  these  remains  a remarkable 
and  beautiful  work,  not  in  all  respects  surpassed  by 
anything  the  artist  did  afterwards.  That  which  is 
most  unlike  the  things  which  were  to  follow  is  the 
“Westminster  Bridge,”  which,  if  it  stood  by  itself, 
would  seem  the  work  of  an  artist  of  an  entirely  differ- 
ent type  from  that  of  Whistler.  Its  virtues  are  other 
than  those  which  came  specially  to  characterise  him, 
while  it  is  weakest  in  just  those  qualities  in  which  he 
became  strongest.  It  is  not  particularly  fine  in 
colour,  being  of  a somewhat  conventional  brownish 
tone  throughout ; neither  is  it  distinguished  by  charm 
of  linear  pattern,  though  its  intricate  linear  structure 
is  interesting.  As  straightforward  painting  of 
nature  it  is  vigorous  and  skilful,  showing  much  clear- 
ness of  vision  and  power  of  representation.  But  it  is 
its  treatment  of  subject  and  its  attitude  toward 
humanity  that  mark  it  as  something  apart  in  the  pro- 
duction of  its  author.  Here,  for  once,  there  is  some- 
thing going  on,  and  something  very  definite.  The 


234 


WHISTLER 


figures  are  very  small,  and  insignificant  as  figures ; 
but  the  power  of  humanity  over  nature,  the  manj^  and 
strange  inventions  of  man,  loom  large  in  it.  This  is 
no  “ arrangement  ” or  “ harmony  ” ; it  is  a picture 
with  a subject  imaginatively  conceived  and  powerfully 
rendered — a picture  by  an  artist  partly  realist,  partly 
romanticist,  who  seems  destined  to  carry  on  in  new 
fields  and  in  a personal  way  the  work  of  the  school 
of  Barbizon.  Never  again  did  Whistler  do  anything 
resembling  it  or  show  any  signs  of  the  kind  of  energy 
that  it  witnesses  to. 

In  “The  Blue  Wave”  we  have  more  of  Whistler 
as  we  know  him,  but  we  have  at  the  same  time  both 
more  naturalism  and  more  conventionalism  than  we 
shall  see  later.  Essentially  it  is  an  arrangement  in 
blue  and  brown,  but  the  brown  is  richer  and  deeper, 
the  blue  more  intense,  than  he  will  ever  make  them 
again ; and  there  is  more  occupation  with  the  precise 
notation  of  form  than  in  his  maturer  work.  He  is 
beginning  to  experiment  with  colour,  but  he  uses  it 
in  strong  oppositions  and  with  the  aim  of  attaining 
fulness  and  force  rather  than  refinement;  while  he 
hesitates  to  break  too  sharply  with  realism  or  with  the 
traditional  methods  of  painting.  It  is  rich  and  hand- 
some, a fine  and  most  effective  picture,  but  beside  the 
marines  he  painted  some  years  afterward  it  seems  a 
trifle  heavy  and  sombre. 

In  these  two  pictures  we  have  two  phases  of  an 
interesting  and  highly  promising  artist,  whose  future 


WHISTLER 


235 


course  is  not  yet  certain.  In  “The  White  Girl” 
Whistler  definitely  announces  himself  as  the  painter 
he  is  to  become.  Here  there  is  no  more  subject  than 
in  any  portrait,  no  strong  oppositions,  no  great 
amount  of  realisation.  The  picture  represents  a 
girl  in  a white  dress  standing  on  a white  skin  before 
a white  curtain,  the  only  colour,  apart  from  the  tones 
of  flesh  and  hair,  being  a bit  of  blue  in  the  matting 
on  the  floor  and  the  hues  of  a few  flowers  which  she 
has  let  fall.  There  is  little  firmness  of  construction 
or  solidity  of  modelling  in  the  flesh,  which  is  reduced 
almost  to  one  flat  tone,  and  there  is  no  especial  ease 
or  brilliancy  of  handling.  The  painting  has  evidently 
cost  trouble  in  parts,  and  the  colour  is  a little  lacking 
in  perfect  purity,  the  conventional  brown  not  being 
yet  entirely  eliminated  from  the  palette.  The  great- 
est charm  of  the  work  is  in  the  sympathetic  rendering 
of  the  face,  not  beautiful,  but  young  and  pure  and 
sweet,  and  in  the  natural  grace  of  the  erect  figure.  It 
is  somewhat  timid  and  awkward  work  as  yet,  but  in  its 
reliance  for  artistic  eflPect  upon  the  decorative  division 
of  space,  on  grace  of  line,  and  on  the  delicate  opposi- 
tion of  nicely  discriminated  tones,  it  is  already  very 
characteristic.  The  artist  has  found  the  road  he  was 
destined  to  tread,  and  henceforth  steps  aside  from  it 
but  seldom. 

In  the  years  from  1861  to  1864,  according  to  Mr. 
Freer,  were  painted  a number  of  small  sketches,  owned 
by  him,  which  show  Whistler  experimenting  on  the 


WHISTLER 


S3G 

lines  suggested  in  the  ‘‘White  Girl,”  and  preluding 
such  delightful  early  successes  as  the  “Little  White 
Girl  ” and  the  “ Symphony  in  White  No.  3.”  They 
are  sketches  only,  without  heads  or  hands  or  definite 
form,  not  completed  pictures  in  any  sense;  but  as 
sketches  they  are  delicious,  and  the  chance  to  see  them 
in  relation  to  the  work  for  which  they  were  a prepara- 
tion is  one  of  the  things  for  which  we  are  most  grate- 
ful to  the  Boston  exhibition.  When  one  remembers 
how  lately  Whistler  himself  had  been  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Courbet — remembers,  also,  that  Manet  was  in 
the  midst  of  his  black  manner,  and  that  the  later 
impressionism  was  not  yet  heard  of — one  realises  the 
great  originality  of  their  delicate,  pure  colour  and 
high  key  of  light.  In  composition  they  remind  one 
of  Japanese  prints,  but  there  is  something  Greek 
about  the  figures,  as  if  Tanagra  figurines  could  be 
flattened  and  painted  upon  a screen.  Not  only  much 
of  the  later  art  of  Whistler  is  here  in  germ,  but  all 
the  art  of  Albert  Moore. 

In  the  ten  or  twelve  years  following  Whistler  pro- 
duced almost  all  of  the  works  which  have  ever  achieved 
anything  like  popular  success.  In  1864  he  painted 
the  “Princesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine”;  in  1865 
or  1866  the  “Little  White  Girl,”  and  about  the  same 
time  “ The  Music  Room  ” ; in  1867  the  “ Symphony  in 
White,  No.  3,”  which  seems  to  be  the  last  picture  he 
signed  with  his  name,  and  also  the  first  which  he  signed 
with  the  butterfly  which  here  appears  in  the  first  of 


WHISTLER 


^37 

its  many  forms.  To  the  late  sixties  or  early  seventies 
belong  the  earliest  of  the  “nocturnes”  and  of  the 
later  marines.  The  portrait  of  his  mother  and  the 
“Carlyle”  must  have  been  done  before  1874,  and 
probably,  also,  the  “ Miss  Alexander  ” and  the  “ Rosa 
Corder,”  while  the  date  of  “ The  Balcony  ” is,  con- 
jecturally,  about  1876.  I know  of  no  instance  of  a 
dated  picture  after  1867,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to 
make  certain  of  one’s  chronology.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  some  one  will  take  the  trouble  to  search  all  avail- 
able records  and  gather  all  scattered  information,  and 
will  give  us,  as  nearly  as  possible,  a chronological  list 
of  Whistler’s  works.  In  the  meantime  it  may  be 
safely  stated  that  the  period  from  his  thirtieth  to  his 
fortieth  year  was  that  in  which  he  produced  those 
pictures  which,  if  they  do  not  necessarily  show  his 
special  qualities  at  their  highest  and  finest,  show  them 
in  the  best  balanced  combination  with  others  which 
have  generally  been  considered  desirable  in  art.  It 
is  the  period  in  which  his  work,  if  not  in  all  ways  most 
characteristic,  is  most  complete  as  we  generally  under- 
stand completeness. 

Whether  or  not  the  work  of  this  decade  is  considered 
Whistler’s  best  will  always  be  largely  a matter  of  the 
personal  equation  of  the  critic.  It  is  also,  in  a sense, 
a matter  of  small  importance.  The  career  is  ended, 
the  work  is  all  done.  The  painter’s  reputation  will 
stand  upon  what  is  best  of  him,  whether  it  came  early 
or  late.  If  the  work  be  fine  and  great,  the  man  was 


WHISTLER 


a great  artist,  and  whether  he  was  greatest  at  forty 
or  at  sixty  is,  indeed,  a matter  of  some  interest,  but 
one  that  does  not  and  cannot  affect  his  essential 
greatness. 

“ The  Little  White  Girl  ” was,  perhaps,  the  general 
favourite  with  visitors  to  Copley  Hall,  pleasing  more 
people  than  any  of  the  other  pictures  there  shown. 
It  owes  this  distinction  partly  to  its  very  great  merit, 
partly  to  what  its  author  would,  a little  later,  have 
thought  to  be  extrinsic  and  eliminable  qualities.  Its 
appeal  lies  partly  in  the  painting,  partly  in  the  things 
painted.  It  has  no  very  definite  subject — it  is  essen- 
tially an  arrangement  of  exquisite  tones  in  a delight- 
ful pattern — but  the  objects  represented  have  more 
than  their  relative  value  as  elements  of  the  pattern; 
they  are  things  capable,  in  themselves,  of  arousing 
interest  and  of  giving  pleasure.  In  the  first  place, 
there  is  physical  beauty.  Whistler  is  thought  to  have 
painted  it  under  the  temporary  influence  of  Rossetti, 
and  certainly  he  never  again  produced  anything  which 
shows  the  same  feeling  for  the  beauty  of  womanhood. 
Character  and  expression  continued  to  occupy  him 
more  than  he  would  admit,  but  pure  beauty  of  form 
and  feature  he  never  again  represented  with  the  same 
interest.  The  figure  leans  against  a marble  mantel, 
her  head,  in  profile,  pensively  inclined,  one  arm 
stretched  along  the  shelf,  the  other  falling  by  her 
side,  the  hand  holding  a Japanese  fan.  Behind  her 
is  a mirror,  and  the  reflection  of  her  face  therein  is 


WHISTLER 


2S9 


not  beautiful,  but  her  profile  is,  and  the  lines  of  her 
throat  and  of  her  graceful  left  hand  are  admirable. 
The  dress  is  of  some  filmy  substance,  and  its  white, 
with  that  of  the  marble,  contrasting  with  the  black  of 
the  grate  and  the  mysterious  grays  of  the  reflections 
in  the  mirror,  are  the  main  elements  of  the  harmony ; 
but  there  are  frank  reds  and  pure  and  vivacious  blues 
in  the  fan  and  in  the  Oriental  vases,  delicate  tints  of 
rose  in  the  flowering  azalea  which  fills  the  lower  right- 
hand  corner.  These  notes  enliven  the  scheme,  while 
the  objects  that  make  them  are,  as  I have  said, 
interesting  things  apart  from  the  role  they  play. 
The  azalea,  particularly,  charmingly  drawn  and 
painted,  is  altogether  delightful.  The  painting  is 
flat,  almost  without  shadows,  a little  dryer  and 
sharper-edged  than  later  work,  a matter  of  justly 
discriminated  values  and  simple  silhouettes ; but  there 
is  substance  in  the  figure,  subtly  expressed,  every- 
where but  in  the  right  hand,  which  is  rather  thin  and 
papery.  The  art  of  choice  and  arrangement  is 
greater  than  the  ability  of  rendering,  but  the  latter 
is  not  so  noticeably  deficient  as  to  interfere  greatly 
with  one’s  enjoyment.  The  total  eflPect  is  of  extreme 
refinement  and  exquisite  loveliness. 

In  “ The  Music  Room  ” we  have  again  a mirror  in 
an  important  role.  There  are  two  figures  in  the  room, 
a woman  in  a black  riding  habit  who  seems  to  be  hold- 
ing up  something,  the  nature  and  position  of  which 
one  does  not  quite  understand,  and  a little  girl  in 


WHISTLER 


MO 

white  buried  in  a book.  In  the  mirror  is  the  reflec- 
tion of  a third  figure,  whose  place  in  the  real  room  is 
also  rather  enigmatical, — that  of  an  elderly  lady 
apparently  playing  on  the  piano.  The  girl  is  a 
charming  figure,  not  quite  realised,  but  very  ade- 
quately suggested.  The  riding  habit  is  perfectly  flat, 
but  its  rich  black  is  pleasant  to  look  at.  The  head 
and  hands  of  its  wearer  remind  one  of  Corot’s  flesh- 
painting— rather  vague  in  form,  a fine  gray-pink  in 
colour,  absolutely  just  in  value.  The  great  beauty 
of  the  picture,  however,  is  in  the  wonderful  painting 
of  the  accessories,  the  curtains  and  vases,  and  their 
reflections  in  the  glass.  One  ceases  to  care  what  the 
figures  are  doing,  or  almost  whether  they  are  figures 
or  not,  as  one  studies  the  delicate  colour,  the  perfect 
tone,  the  fascinating  lightness  and  fluidity  of  touch 
with  which  these  things  are  rendered.  In  spite  of' 
Whistler’s  query,  his  admirers  are  ever  prone  to  “ drag 
in  Velasquez.”  Here,  at  least,  is  a bit  of  painting 
that  the  great  Spaniard  might  have  been  proud  to 
own. 

Was  it  because  he  felt  that  in  such  a picture  as  this 
the  still-life  was,  in  a manner,  better  than  the  figures, 
that  Whistler  never  makes  so  much  of  it  again.?  For 
complete  representation  of  objects  this  picture  is  per- 
haps his  high-water  mark.  And  in  only  one  impor- 
tant picture  of  later  date  that  I can  remember,  “ The 
Balcony,” — a picture  more  purely  Japanese  than  any 
other,  in  which  representation  has  almost  ceased  to 


WHISTLER 


Ml 


exist — does  he  put  two  or  more  figures  on  one  canvas. 
Except  as  mere  spots  or  suggestion  of  crowds  his 
figures  hereafter  exist  alone.  He  confines  himself  to 
the  portrait-painter’s  problem  of  the  single  figure  or 
even  the  single  head.  In  the  “ Miss  Alexander  ” there 
are  still  a few  accessories — a panelled  wall,  a garment 
thrown  over  a stool,  a few  daisies  at  the  side;  in  the 
“Mother”  there  are  only  a straight  curtain  and  a 
framed  print,  and  in  the  “ Carlyle  ” even  the  curtain 
is  gone.  In  the  “ Rosa  Corder  ” there  is  not  even  a 
wall,  the  black  figure  emerging  from  blacker  space, 
and  this  is  the  commoner  condition  in  his  later  por- 
traits, though  a gray  wall  or  a curtain  filling  the 
whole  background  is  now  and  then  suggested.  In  the 
use  of  anything  like  positive  colour,  also,  Whistler 
becomes  more  sparing  during  this  period.  The 
“ Mother  ” and  the  “ Carlyle  ” are  arrangements  in 
black  and  gray,  the  “ Rosa  Corder  ” is  an  arrange- 
ment in  black  and  brown.  He  even  loses  his  interest 
in  white,  and  the  “ Miss  Alexander  ” seems  to  be  the 
last  picture  in  which  white  plays  an  important  part. 
In  “ The  Balcony  ” there  is  a bouquet  of  bright 
colours,  but  it  is  the  last.  The  earliest  nocturnes 
have  still  a powerful  blue,  though  far  less  positive 
and  intense  than  in  earlier  work,  but  it  becomes  less 
and  less  decided,  fainter  and  grayer,  or  shifting  into 
black.  The  variations  of  gray  become  his  dominat- 
ing preoccupation,  and  he  distinguishes  them  with 
extraordinary  subtlety. 


242 


WHISTLER 


The  purely  artistic  elements  of  such  a picture  as 
the  “ Mother”  are  few  and  simple.  A gray,  a black, 
a little  low-toned  white,  and  the  dim  pink  of  the  flesh, 
this  is  all  of  colour.  The  right  lines  of  the  curtain 
and  the  baseboard,  cutting  the  parallelogram  of  the 
canvas,  are  echoed  by  the  smaller  rectangle  of  the 
frame  upon  the  walls,  and  diagonally  across  this  back- 
ground is  drawn  the  austere  silhouette  of  the  figure, 
its  boundaries  simplified  into  long  curves,  delicately 
modulated,  but  with  scarce  a break  or  accident  in  all 
their  length.  Everything  is  sober  and  severe  except 
for  the  one  outbreak  of  capricious  fancy  in  the  dainty 
embroidery  of  the  curtain,  which  lights  up  the  pic- 
ture like  a smile  on  a grave  face.  It  is  the  masterly 
management  of  these  elements — the  perfect  balance 
of  the  spaces  so  frankly  outlined,  the  quality  of  the 
few  tones  of  black  or  gray,  the  fine  gradation  of  the 
curves — which  gives  the  picture  its  rare  distinction. 
These  purely  artistic  matters  were,  perhaps,  all  that 
Whistler  was  consciously  occupied  with — this  beauti- 
ful arrangement  of  tones  and  lines  and  spaces  was 
all  he  would  admit  he  had  produced — ^but  the  picture 
owes  its  popularity  to  quite  other  qualities.  The 
public  has  insisted  on  “caring  about  the  identity  of 
the  portrait,”  or  at  least  about  its  character  and 
humanity,  and  in  feeling  that  such  a “foreign” 
emotion  as  love  has,  somehow,  got  itself  expressed  on 
the  canvas.  The  gentle  refinement  of  the  aged  face, 
the  placid  pose,  with  hands  folded  in  the  lap,  the 


WHISTLER 


24fS 

sweetness  and  strength  of  character,  the  aroma  of 
gentility,  the  peace  of  declining  years — all  these 
things  have  been  rendered  or  suggested  by  the  artist 
with  reverent  care  and  sympathy.  One  feels  that  he 
has  so  painted  his  mother  that  she  becomes  a type  of 
the  mother  as  she  is  for  all  of  us,  or  as  we  should  wish 
her  to  be,  and  we  accuse  him,  in  spite  of  his  denial, 
of  having  made  something  finer  and  nobler  and  far 
more  important  than  any  “ arrangement  in  gray  and 
black,”  however  exquisite. 

In  the  “ Rosa  Corder  ” the  scheme  is  black  on 
black,  a bit  of  gray  in  the  gloved  hand,  and  a single 
note  of  brown  in  the  low  riding-hat  and  feather. 
It  is  a canvas  of  the  narrow,  upright  form  which 
becomes  henceforth  so  characteristic  of  Whistler’s 
portraits,  and  the  lines  are  more  sinuous  and  grace- 
ful than  severe,  though  with  no  slightest  tendency  to 
floridity.  They  are  admirably  expressive  of  the  firm 
elasticity  of  youth  and  strength,  and  of  the  easy 
poise  of  a body  in  its  prime.  The  head,  turned  over 
the  shoulder,  is  again  in  profile,  and  in  its  low  tone 
and  lack  of  modelling  seems,  at  first,  somewhat  sacri- 
ficed, but  as  one  looks  at  it  it  grows  more  elegant  and 
distinguished.  Here  also  we  have  something  more 
than  mere  arrangement — a sympathetic  presentment 
of  a human  personality. 

It  is  in  such  pictures  as  these  that  the  comparison 
to  Velasquez,  so  frequently  made,  is,  if  anywhere, 
justified.  If  any  Western  artist  exercised  anything 


244 


WHISTLER 


like  a permanent  influence  on  Whistler  it  was  the 
great  Spaniard,  but  it  seems  to  me  more  just  to  say 
that  Whistler’s  talent  resembled  one  side  of  that  of 
Velasquez  than  that  there  was  anything  like  imita- 
tion. Some  of  the  things  which  Velasquez  had  done 
it  was  natural  for  Whistler  to  do,  as  it  was  natural 
for  him  to  attain  some  of  the  qualities  of  Japanese 
art,  and  in  the  arrangement  and  division  of  space, 
the  elegance  of  silhouette,  the  beauty  of  quiet  tone, 
the  richness  of  his  blacks  and  grays,  the  younger 
painter  is  nearly  or  quite  the  equal  of  the  elder.  The 
comparison,  then,  is  natural,  but  it  is  rather  over- 
whelming. Putting  aside  the  mere  abundance  of 
Velasquez;  putting  aside  his  ability  as  an  organiser 
of  great  spectacles  like  “ The  Lances  ” or  his  mas- 
tery of  large  compositions  like  the  “ Maids  of 
Honour  ” or  the  “ Spinners  ” ; neglecting  his  horses 
and  his  dogs  and  everything  but  such  single  portraits 
as  in  their  simplicity  of  scheme  may  be  fitly  compared 
with  those  of  Wliistler;  and  we  have  only  to  remem- 
ber that  another  painter  of  our  day,  and  a very 
different  one,  is  also  constantly  compared  to  him  to 
see  how  much  of  Velasquez  is  outside  Whistlers  range. 
If  to  all  the  qualities  of  Whistler’s  best  portraits 
could  be  added  all  Sargent’s  sure  notation  of  form 
and  brilliancy  of  execution,  we  should  have,  not  yet 
Velasquez,  but  something  liker  to  him  than  anything 
done  in  two  centuries  past.  How  far  the  balance 
may  be  redressed  by  those  things  in  Whistler’s  work 


WHISTLER 


245 


which  are  not  to  be  found  in  that  of  Velasquez,  or 
of  any  one  else,  we  may  not  yet  say;  but  in  the  por- 
trait of  his  mother  Whistler  is  one  of  the  most  refined 
and  delightful  artists  of  the  nineteenth  century ; 
Velasquez  is  one  of  the  greatest  painters  of  all 
time. 

How  far  the  absence  from  these  portraits  of 
Whistler’s  of  substance,  form,  construction,  model- 
ling, is  consequent  on  inability,  how  far  on  deliberate 
choice,  is  a question  that  perhaps  admits  of  no  definite 
answer.  After  all,  if  desire  is  not  necessarily  ability, 
a lack  of  desire  is  disability.  One  may  not  be  able 
to  do  what  one  likes,  but  one  cannot,  in  art,  do  what 
one  does  not  like;  and  to  say  that  an  artist  does  not 
care  for  certain  qualities  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say 
he  cannot  attain  them.  It  may  be  true  that  he  could 
do  this  or  that  if  he  chose,  but  he  cannot  choose.  He 
lacks  the  first  essential  ability,  the  ability  to  desire. 
Either  from  a lessening  of  physical  vitality  or  a 
greater  concentration  on  the  purely  musical  elements 
of  his  art,  then,  Whistler  did  not  choose — could  not 
choose — ^to  give  us,  after  the  early  seventies,  any- 
thing so  complete  as  these  three  of  four  portraits; 
anything  with  their  human  interest,  their  quality  of 
characterisation,  their  degree  of  realisation.  “ The 
Fur  Jacket  ” is  already  slighter  and  looser,  and  after 
that  his  later  portraits  become  more  and  more  the 
“ arrangements  ” he  called  them.  The  pigment  grows 
ever  thinner  and  more  fluid,  the  edges  disappear  after 


$46 


WHISTLER 


the  modelling,  the  figures  grow  ghostlike  and  unsub- 
stantial, the  hands  cease  to  exist,  and  the  heads  become 
only  a note  of  flesh-colour  in  the  general  harmony. 
Perhaps  the  weakest  of  them  all  is  the  “ Comte  de 
Montesquiou-Fezensac,”  which  is  not  even  an  agree- 
able arrangement  either  in  line  or  colour;  one  of  the 
best  is  also  a very  late  one,  “ L’Andalousienne,” 
graceful  in  line,  delicate  in  its  differentiation  of 
closely  related  grays,  but  with  a face  almost  devoid 
of  features. 

It  is  not  in  his  later  portraits,  which  show  no 
new  invention  of  harmony  to  balance  their  loss  of 
humanity,  that  the  best  work  of  the  last  thirty  years 
of  Whistler’s  life  is  to  be  found,  but  in  that  series  of 
small  canvases,  “ harmonies,”  “ notes,”  “ arrange- 
ments,” “ nocturnes,”  which  are  among  the  most 
characteristic,  if  not  in  all  respects  the  finest,  of  his 
productions.  They  rarely  exceed  a foot  or  two  in 
dimensions,  and  many  of  them  are  only  a few  inches 
square.  They  are  occasionally  small  single  figures, 
more  often  merely  heads — or  they  are  bits  of  streets 
and  shop  fronts,  river  scenes,  marines.  Whistler 
was  a city-dweller  who  took  occasional  trips  to  the 
sea-shore,  and  there  is  no  sign  of  love  for  the  country 
in  any  work  of  his;  indeed,  one  can  hardly  say  that 
there  is  any  love  for  the  sea,  as  such,  in  these  later 
works — one  can  hardly  imagine  a yachtsman  caring 
for  Whistler’s  sea-pieces  because  they  represent  his 
favourite  element.  He  treats  the  sea,  as  he  does 


WHISTLER 


247 


everything  else,  as  a pretext  for  a harmony  of  two 
or  three  subtly  discriminated  tones,  and  it  lends  itself 
admirably  to  his  purpose  because  of  the  lack  of  solid 
objects  or  of  definite  and  generally  recognisable 
forms.  Definition  and  realisation  have  become  irk- 
some and  distasteful  to  him,  and,  whatever  his  subject, 
he  gives  as  little  of  them  as  possible.  Many  of  these 
things  are  true  sketches,  nearly  instantaneous  in  exe- 
cution, painted,  almost,  in  an  hour  or  two.  Others 
have  been  long  retained  and  worked  over  again  and 
again,  but  never  with  the  preoccupation  of  “ finish.” 
The  labour  has  gone  to  the  gradual  refinement  of  the 
tones,  the  achievement  of  more  perfect  harmony,  and 
the  work  is  left,  at  the  end,  as  vague  and  floating  in 
its  forms  as  at  the  beginning.  It  is  even  possible 
that  the  vagueness  has  increased  with  the  progress  of 
the  work,  and  that  the  least  definite  statements  are 
those  which  have  been  most  pondered.  The  painter 
has  come  almost  as  nearly  as  is  conceivable  to  a 
realisation  of  his  personal  ideal — the  ideal  of  paint- 
ing purged  of  its  representative  elements,  and  brought 
to  the  condition  of  what  is  called  ‘‘  absolute  music  ” — * 
painting  in  which  colour,  pattern,  line,  exist  for  them- 
selves, with  the  least  possible  reference  to  anything 
external.  But  if  we  are  refused  so  much  that  has 
hitherto  pleased  or  interested  us  in  painting,  what  we 
get  we  get  with  a singular  intensity.  Clear  your 
mind  of  prepossessions,  forget  about  meanings  and 
intentions,  forget  about  nature,  forget  about  form 


248 


WHISTLER 


or  substance  or  definition — let  the  artist  play  to  you, 
and  you  shall  find  his  airs  ravishing  in  their  sweet- 
ness. 

And  they  are  airs  which  no  one  else  has  played. 
For  this  art  differs  from  all  the  art  of  the  past  not 
only  in  that  everything  but  the  purely  musical  ele- 
ments has  been  banished  from  it,  but  in  that  these 
elements  are  treated  differently  and  are  of  a different 
kind  and  quality.  It  is  not  only  that  colour  and 
pattern  and  the  material  beauty  of  paint  are  to  stand 
alone,  but  that  we  are  given  a different  colour,  a 
different  pattern,  a different  material  beauty  from 
any  we  have  known.  In  all  these  things  the  charac- 
teristic note  of  Whistler  is  extreme  refinement  and 
tenuity.  To  his  extraordinary  sensitiveness  and  deli- 
cacy of  perception  any  fulness  of  sound  is  almost 
as  distressing  as  noisiness,  and  splendour  is  perilously 
akin  to  vulgarity.  In  colour  he  gives  us  no  crashing 
climaxes,  no  vibrant,  full-orchestraed  harmonies — his 
is  an  art  of  nuances  and  shadings,  of  distinctions 
scarce  to  be  followed  by  the  ordinary  eye.  What  he 
calls  blue  or  green  or  rose,  violet  or  grenat  or  gold, 
are  the  disembodied  spirits  of  these  colours,  tinges  and 
intimations  of  them  rather  than  the  colours  them- 
selves. Sometimes  the  tinge  is  so  faint  that  no  one 
else  can  perceive  it,  and  sometimes  what,  to  his  con- 
sciousness, is  the  keynote  of  his  composition,  is  so 
faintly  sounded  that,  to  another,  it  seems  the  least 
important  note  of  all.  Finally  he  wraps  everything 


WHISTLER 


249 


in  the  gray  mystery  of  night,  and  his  picture  seems 
composed  of  nothing  more  substantial  than  the  atmos- 
phere itself. 

So  his  lines  are  reduced  to  the  fewest,  and  mod- 
ulated with  the  most  imperceptible  fineness,  and  his 
actual  use  of  material  has  been  similarly  sublimated. 
Not  only  could  he  not  abide  the  rough  hatchings  of 
the  Impressionists  or  the  heavy  masses  of  paint  of 
the  modern  Dutch  or  the  followers  of  Dupre,  but  the 
rich  textures  of  the  Venetians,  the  close  enamel  of 
Holbein  or  Van  Eyck,  the  crisp  touches  of  Hals,  are 
equally  foreign  to  him.  He  has  a strong  sense  for 
the  beauty  of  material,  but  it  is  of  material  brought 
to  the  verge  of  immateriality.  His  paint  is  fluid, 
thin,  dilute;  his  touch  feather-light  and  melting. 
There  may  be  twenty  successive  layers  of  pigment  on 
the  canvas,  but  it  is  scarce  covered,  and  its  texture 
shows  everywhere.  It  is  almost  as  if  he  painted  with 
thought. 

One  feels  thick-fingered  and  clumsy  in  trying  to 
distinguish  among  these  later  works  of  Whistler — 
works  in  which  a kind  of  art  by  suggestion  has  gone 
so  far  that  one  catches  one’s  self  wondering  whether 
one  has  not  been  hypnotised  into  a belief  in  pictures 
which  have  no  objective  existence.  It  is  to  rub  the 
bloom  oflp  them  to  examine  them  too  closely.  There 
were  many  of  them  in  Copley  Hall,  and  by  no  means 
all  of  the  same  quality,  but  they  all  seemed  too  slight 
to  bear  handling,  too  lacking  in  the  positive  for 


S50 


WHISTLER 


description,  too  evanescent,  almost,  for  separate 
recollection.  They  blend  in  one’s  memory  like  past 
twilights,  and  have,  in  the  retrospect,  little  more 
individuality  than  last  year’s  violets.  Is  it  worth 
while  to  catalogue  and  annotate,  to  say  that  this 
is  beautiful  and  that  not  so  beautiful,  this  successful 
and  that  a failure  I have  my  notes,  and  even  with- 
out them  I recall  a few  things  with  some  distinctness 
— “ Grenat  et  Or — Le  Petit  Cardinal,^^  one  of  several 
variations  in  dim  reds ; “ Symphony  in  Violet  and 
Blue,”  a marine  in  which  the  violet  is  little  more  than 
gray,  and  the  blue  is  but  a faint  blue-green ; “ Blue 
and  Silver — Trouville,”  dainty  and  clear;  and  “ Noc- 
turne in  Blue  and  Silver — Cremome  Lights,”  lovely 
in  its  pale  opalescence.  Then,  “Nocturne  in  Black 
and  Gold — The  Falling  Rocket,”  with  its  sprinkle  of 
gold-dust  on  the  blue-black  darkness ; and,  most  ghost- 
like of  all,  two  nocturnes,  “ Gray  and  Silver — Chelsea 
Embankment,”  and  “ Blue  and  Silver — Battersea 
Reach,”  so  much  alike  and  so  devoid  of  nameable 
colour  that  one  fails  to  see  how  one  has  more  blue  or 
less  gray  than  the  other,  but  quite  wonderful  in  their 
feeling  of  mystery  and  of  palpable  air.  So  one 
recalls  other  things,  not  so  perfect,  where  the  har- 
mony has  been  missed,  be  it  ever  so  slightly,  and 
there  is  nothing  to  take  its  place.  But  it  is  not  this 
or  that  picture  that  one  remembers  most  clearly,  it 
is  the  total  impression  of  an  art  infinitely  subtle, 
infinitely  fastidious,  tremulously  intense;  an  art  of 


WHISTLER 


251 


exquisite  sensibilities  and  fine  nerves,  of  reticences  and 
reservations ; a music  of  muted  strings. 

Slight  as  are  Whistler’s  later  oils,  his  water-colours 
and  pastels  are  yet  slighter.  Pastel  is  the  slightest 
and  most  evanescent  seeming  of  materials ; but  surely 
no  one  has  used  it  with  such  slightness  as  he.  A few 
square  inches  of  brown  or  gray  paper,  a few  chalk 
lines,  lightly  set  down,  a touch  of  colour  here  and 
there — ^this  makes  up  a pastel  as  Whistler  conceived 
it.  The  subject  is  most  often  the  figure,  nude  or 
slightly  draped,  but  these  are  figures  from  which  aU 
the  things  on  which  the  great  figure -painters  spent 
their  efforts  have  been  eliminated.  Here  are  no 
attempts  to  express  structure  or  stress  or  pressure, 
still  less  to  render  solidity  or  the  texture  of  flesh  or 
even  its  colour.  The  lines  are  of  beautiful  quality  in 
themselves,  but  their  charm  is  that  of  their  own  curva- 
ture as  abstract  lines  and  of  their  arrangement,  their 
relative  distance  from  each  other,  and  the  way  in 
which  they  subdivide  the  space  of  paper.  The 
touches  of  colour  are  delightfully  placed,  but  they 
represent  nothing,  though  nature  may  have  given 
the  hint  for  their  placing  and  the  relative  intensity 
of  their  hue.  Light  and  shade,  for  which  Whistler  has 
never  greatly  cared,  is  eliminated  entirely,  and  even 
truth  of  values,  which  he  has  retained  longest  of 
the  qualities  common  to  great  painting,  is  now  aban- 
doned. Pretty  much  everything  of  our  Western  art 
has  been  left  out  as  non-essential,  and  even  that  com- 


252 


WHISTLER 


position  of  light  and  dark,  upon  which  the  artists 
of  the  far  East  have  always  laid  so  much  stress,  has 
disappeared.  With  infinitely  greater  deftness  and 
mastery,  and  now  of  set  intention,  as  the  ultimate 
expression  of  his  ideal  in  art,  Whistler  has  come  back 
to  the  condition  of  those  early  sketches,  already  men- 
tioned, which  were  the  prelude  to  “ The  Little  White 
Girl  ” and  ‘‘  The  Balcony.”  His  material  aiding 
him,  he  has  sloughed  off,  more  completely  even  than 
in  his  latest  nocturnes,  everything  that  can  be 
sloughed  and  leave  a vestige  of  painting  as  an  art  of 
representation.  To  this  he  was  bound  to  come  at 
last,  if  he  lived  long  enough.  It  is  impossible  to 
imagine  any  further  step  that  shall  not  lead  to  the 
tracing  of  purely  meaningless  lines  and  spots  for  the 
pleasant  diversification  of  a surface.  The  Whistler 
who  is  most  like  the  great  artists  of  all  times,  as  our 
Western  world  has  known  them,  is  the  Whistler  of  the 
‘‘  Mother.”  The  Whistler  who  is  most  entirely  him- 
self, pushing  his  own  theories  to  their  possible  limit 
and  relying  exclusively  upon  his  own  special  gifts, 
is  the  Whistler  of  the  nocturnes  and  the  pastels — a 
dainty,  winged  spirit,  as  light  and  as  graceful  as  the 
butterfly  he  chose  for  his  emblem. 

Two  or  three  interesting  beginnings  in  directions 
which  were  to  lead  to  nothing,  a few  captivating  early 
pictures,  perhaps  half  a dozen  fine  portraits,  a hundred 
or  two  little  pictures  and  pastels  of  ethereal  charm — 
such  is  the  baggage,  slender  enough  it  must  be  con- 


WHISTLER 


253 


fessed,  and,  perhaps,  a trifle  fragile,  with  which  the 
painter  begins  his  voyage  down  the  ages.  One  can 
imagine  some  of  the  abounding  geniuses  of  the  past, 
henceforth  his  fellow-travellers,  looking  at  him  with 
raised  eyebrows.  “ Was,  then,  your  time  so  impov- 
erished that  this  seemed  wealth  to  it?”  It  is  indeed 
probable  that  in  no  other  century  could  so  great  a 
reputation  have  been  founded  on  work  of  this  texture, 
but  there  are  certain  considerations  which  lead  to  a 
reasonable  expectation  of  permanency  for  it.  For 
it  is  not  the  men  who  do  many  things  well,  and  achieve 
a high  average  of  merit,  whom  the  world  most  delights 
to  honour,  but  the  men  who  do  one  thing  better  than 
anybody  else.  Whistler  has  done  certain  things  that 
no  one  else  has  done,  given  us  certain  sensations  not 
to  be  had  from  other  works  than  his.  No  one  else  has 
so  well  painted  night,  no  one  else  so  suggested  mystery, 
no  one  so  created  an  atmosphere.  In  no  other  art  we 
know  has  the  pleasure  to  be  derived  from  tone  and  from 
the  division  of  space  been  given  so  purely  and  so 
intensely.  Even  should  these  things  be  done  again, 
and  done  better,  he  will  have  been  the  first  to  do  them, 
and  that  of  itself  is  a title  to  fame.  And  apart  from 
the  value  of  his  own  achievement,  Whistler  has  been, 
and  is,  a potent  influence  on  others,  and  such  influences 
have  their  own  special  glory.  He  has  had,  and  will 
have  for  a time,  mere  imitators  who  copy  his  methods 
and  vainly  hope  to  become  great  artists  by  mixing 
black  with  all  their  colours,  but  there  are  thousands 


254* 


WHISTLER 


of  others  whose  perceptions  have  been  quickened  by 
contact  with  his,  who  have  learned  to  see  more  deli- 
cately because  he  has  shown  them  how,  whose  eyes 
have  been  opened  to  beauties  before  unnoticed. 

Was  he  a great  master  ? Posterity  will  decide. 
At  any  rate,  he  was  a true  artist,  and  in  an  age  too 
much  dominated  by  the  scientific  spirit — an  age  given 
up  to  experiment  and  the  desire  to  know  and  to  record 
— ^he  consistently  devoted  his  beautiful  talent  to  those 
things  in  art  which  are  farthest  removed  from  natu- 
ralism and  from  science,  and  in  his  impatience  of  a 
painting  that  is  not  always  art  created  an  art  which 
almost  ceases  to  be  painting. 


SARGENT 


SINCE  the  death  of  Whistler,  Mr.  Sargent 
holds,  by  all  odds,  the  highest  and  most  con- 
spicuous position  before  the  world  of  any  artist 
whom  we  can  claim  as  in  some  sort  an  American — 
indeed,  he  is  to-day  one  of  the  most  famous  artists  of 
any  country,  easily  the  first  painter  of  England,  and 
one  of  the  first  wherever  he  may  find  himself.  Not 
only  is  he  indubitably  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of 
living  artists,  but  his  enthusiastic  admirers  are  ready 
to  proclaim  him  one  of  the  great  artists  of  all  times, 
and  to  invite  comparison  of  his  works  with  those  of  the 
greatest  of  his  predecessors.  He  has  painted  a vast 
number  of  portraits,  a few  pictures,  and  some  mural 
decorations  which,  from  the  ability  displayed  in  them 
and  the  originality  of  their  conception,  are  certainly 
to  be  reckoned  among  the  most  considerable  efforts  in 
that  branch  of  art  produced  within  a century  past. 

Recently  there  was  issued  a volume  of  photo- 
gravure plates  of  his  most  important  works,  exclu- 
sive of  his  mural  paintings,  and  this  volume  affords 
an  admirable  opportunity  for  a general  view  of 
his  work  as  a painter — not  as  a decorator.  His 
mural  paintings  would,  in  any  case,  require  separate 
and  exhaustive  treatment,  not  only  because  they  are 

255 


256 


SARGENT 


apart  from  the  rest  of  his  work,  but  because  the 
demands  of  this  kind  of  art  are  altogether  different 
from  those  made  upon  the  artist  by  portraiture  and 
genre  painting  (and  Sargent’s  largest  pictures,  other 
than  the  paintings  in  the  Boston  Public  Library,  are 
still  essentially  genre  pictures),  and  the  whole  point 
of  view  of  the  critic  must  be  shifted  to  deal  with  the 
new  considerations  involved. 

It  must  be  understood,  then,  at  the  outset,  that 
nothing  now  said  has  any  reference  to  these  decora- 
tions. If,  in  the  discussion  of  Sargent’s  other  work, 
it  is  necessary  to  point  out  those  things  in  which  he  is 
least  great,  it  is  because  he  is  so  large  a figure  in 
modern  art  that  the  attempt  to  define  his  limitations 
can  only  serve  to  accent  his  magnitude.  To  show 
where  he  is  strongest  it  is  necessary  to  show  where  he 
is  less  strong;  and  if  any  comparisons  are  implied, 
they  are  only  with  the  highest.  One  begins  by  accept- 
ing him  as  head  and  shoulders  above  most  of  his  con- 
temporaries ; the  effort  is  to  show  wherein  he  resembles 
or  differs  from  the  great  masters  of  other  times,  and 
to  arrive  at  an  approximate  idea  of  the  place  which  he 
may  eventually  hold  among  them.  It  is  with  this 
desire  that  one  turns  over  the  pages  containing  the 
record  of  a career  already  so  astonishing,  though  we 
may  reasonably  hope  that  it  is  not  more  than  half  run. 

In  the  first  place,  it  becomes  immediately  evident 
that  Sargent,  as  becomes  a portrait  painter,  belongs 
to  the  class  of  observers  rather  than  to  that  of  the 


SARGENT 


257 


composers.  With  some  exceptions,  he  seems  at  his  best 
almost  in  proportion  to  the  limitation  of  his  subject- 
matter  ; his  single  heads  and  figures  being  more 
thoroughly  satisfactory  than  his  groups  of  several 
figures.  The  exceptions  are  extremely  significant, 
and  do,  in  this  case,  really  go  far  to  prove  the  rule, 
for  they  are  pictures  of  things  seen,  not  of  things 
arranged.  They  are  such  pictures  as  “ El  Jaleo  ” or 
the  smaller  “ Spanish  Dance  ” ; as  ‘‘  Carnation,  Lily, 
Lily,  Rose  ” or  the  portrait  of  ‘‘  The  Children  of  E.  D. 
Boit” — ^things  which  we  should  call  admirably  and 
ingeniously  arranged  were  it  not  for  the  feeling  that 
they  happened  so;  that  the  artist  seized  upon  a for- 
tuitous natural  composition  and  recorded  it,  either 
from  memory  or  directly  from  the  thing.  Of  course, 
one  does  not  mean  that  it  required  no  sense  of  com- 
position to  do  this,  or  that  the  natural  arrangement 
was  unmodified  by  the  artistic  sense — only  that  the 
immediate  inspiration  of  nature  was  necessary  to  stim- 
ulate the  artist’s  sense  of  composition  to  this  point, 
and  that  he  is  less  happy  when  he  is  called  upon  to 
conceive  beforehand  an  arrangement  into  which  his 
observations  of  nature  shall  be  made  to  fit — when  he  is 
asked  to  invent  a natural  grouping  of  several  figures 
which  shall  afterwards  be  studied  from  the  life. 
Instances  of  this  relative  inferiority  to  his  own  best 
are  such  groups  as  “ Lady  Elcho,  Mrs.  Tennant,  and 
Mrs.  Adeane  ” and  “ The  Ladies  Alexandra,  Mary, 
and  Theo  Acheson,”  which,  with  all  their  brilliancy. 


258 


SARGENT 


and  in  spite  of  their  great  beauty  in  the  several  parts, 
are  not  altogether  as  satisfactory  as  either  Mr.  Sar- 
gent’s single  portraits  or  his  pictures.  The  latter 
group,  with  its  reminiscence  of  Reynolds  or  Gains- 
borough, is  also,  like  the  portrait  of  “ Miss  Daisy 
Leiter  ” and  one  or  two  other  things  in  which  he  has 
experimented  in  the  vein  of  eighteenth-century  art,  a 
reminder  that,  like  other  observers,  he  is  best  when  most 
frankly  of  his  own  time.  They  are  extremely  clever, 
as  they  could  not  well  help  being,  being  his,  but  they 
are  not  the  real  thing;  and  one  feels  that  one  has  lost 
more  in  losing  something  of  his  acute  observation  of 
the  actual  than  one  has  gained  by  the  addition  of  what 
are,  after  all,  transplanted  graces.  It  is  the  unex- 
pected that  we  expect  from  Mr.  Sargent — his  per- 
sonal interpretation  of  what  is;  not  the  attempt  to 
square  it  with  other  men’s  interpretration  of  what  was. 

Sargent,  then,  is  to  be  ranked  with  the  observers 
and  painters — with  the  realists,  in  a sense,  for  there  is 
a realism  of  elegance  as  well  as  of  ugliness — and  his 
task  is  to  show  us  what  he  sees  with  his  bodily  eyes,  not 
what  he  can  imagine  of  beautiful  or  august.  The  art 
of  the  pure  painters,  of  whom  he  is  one,  is  a mingling 
of  observation  and  craftsmanship,  and  their  relative 
importance  is  determined  partly  by  the  rarity  of  their 
observations  and  the  kind  of  facts  observed  by  them, 
partly  by  the  beauty  which  they  know  how  to  get  out 
of  the  actual  materials  of  their  art  and  their  handling 
of  them.  That  Sargent  is  a past  master  of  his  craft 


SARGENT 


259 


it  is  no  longer  necessary  to  say,  and  the  eulogy  of  his 
workmanship  is  already  made.  In  her  introduction  to 
the  Scribner  volume  Mrs.  Meynell  quotes  a passage 
from  a letter  of  Ruskin’s  to  Rossetti  in  which  he  says : 
“ There  are  two  methods  of  laying  oil  colour  which 
can  be  proved  right ; . . . one  of  them  having  no 
display  of  hand,  the  other  involving  it  essentially  and 
as  an  element  of  its  beauty.”  She  rather  objects  to 
the  word  “ display,”  thinking  that,  if  writing  for  pub- 
lication, Ruskin  would  have  changed  it  for  one  of  more 
dignity ; but  the  word  seems  the  right  one.  With  the 
painters  whom  Fromentin  calls  cacJiottier,  Sargent  has 
no  affinity,  whether  they  paint  simply  and  beautifully, 
with  a handling  that  escapes  detection  in  its  very  sim- 
plicity, or  whether  they  indulge  in  mysterious  pro- 
cesses savouring  at  once  of  cookery  and  of  alchemy. 
There  are  no  tricks  in  his  trade — ^he  is  perfectly  frank, 
and  everything  is  on  the  surface,  for  him  who  runs  to 
read.  It  does  not  satisfy  him  that  his  work  is  right, 
or  even  that  it  is  actually  easy  for  him  to  make  it  so — 
it  must  look  easy.  He  is  one  of  the  great  virtuosi  of 
the  brush,  and  he  counts  upon  the  pleasure  his  vir- 
tuosity will  afford  you  for  a great  part  of  his  effect. 
He  will  spare  no  pains  to  give  you  the  impression  that 
he  has  had  to  take  none,  and  will  repaint  any  part  of 
his  picture  that  may  have  cost  too  much  effort,  giving 
more  labour  that  it  may  seem  to  have  needed  less.  In 
this  particular  and  perfectly  legitimate  charm  of  art 
— the  charm  of  prompt  and  efficient  execution,  the 


260 


SARGENT 


magic  of  the  hand — Sargent  is,  perhaps,  the  equal  of 
any  one,  even  of  the  greatest.  It  remains  to  examine 
what  are  the  characteristics  of  the  vision  which  he  fixes 
for  us,  what  are  the  qualities  of  nature  best  observed 
by  the  eye  and  brain  so  admirably  served. 

Of  the  three  great  classes  of  truths  which  it  is  the 
business  of  the  painter  to  observe,  truths  of  colour,  of 
light  and  shade  and  tone,  and  of  form,  it  is  the  truths 
of  form  that  Sargent  observes  most  surely,  and  it  is 
as  a draughtsman  that  he  most  entirely  triumphs. 
He  is  above  all  a painter  of  the  shapes  of  things. 
This  is  partly  a matter  of  temperament  and  gift, 
partly  a matter  of  training  and  technical  method. 
There  is  nothing  in  which  the  great  colourists  have 
more  delighted  than  in  the  painting  of  human  flesh, 
and  the  technical  methods  which  Sargent  originally 
acquired  f rom  his  master,  Carolus  Duran,  are,  in  spite 
of  modification  in  his  hands,  ill  fitted  to  express  the 
peculiar  irradiation  and  colouring  from  beneath  which 
are  the  great  charm  of  that  substance.  The  sweeps 
of  opaque  colour  laid  on  with  a full  brush  are  apt  to 
give  a texture  as  of  drapery,  no  matter  how  accurate 
the  particular  tints  may  be ; and  if  we  are  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  instantaneous  execution,  we  must  generally 
accept  with  it  some  diminution  of  the  pleasure 
derivable  from  beautiful  flesh  painting.  The  great 
painters  of  flesh  have  generally  been  more  cachottier; 
and,  indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  the  highest  beauty  of 
colouring  is  always  more  or  less  incompatible  with  too 


SARGENT 


261 


great  frankness  of  procedure,  and  demands  a certain 
reticence  and  mystery.  Whether  the  great  tech- 
nicians have  felt  this  incompatibility  and  contented 
themselves  with  only  a relative  perfection  of  colour,  or 
whether  a less  acute  sensitiveness  to  colour  was  a condi- 
tion precedent  to  their  becoming  great  technicians,  it 
is  certain  that  the  highest  refinement  of  colour  has  not 
hitherto  been  found  in  conjunction  with  the  most  direct 
handling,  and  that,  even  with  Velasquez,  as  his  colour 
becomes  more  beautiful  his  handling  will  generally  be 
found  more  mysterious.  Something  of  the  same  sort 
is  true,  to  a lesser  degree,  with  light  and  shade ; and 
the  masters  of  chiaroscuro,  the  delicate  discriminators 
of  values,  the  creators  of  tone,  have  generally  been 
mysterious  technicians.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that 
light  and  shade  is  mystery,  and  has  been  the  favourite 
means  of  expression  of  the  painters  to  whom  mystery 
makes  the  greatest  appeal.  No  one  would  think  of 
denying  to  Sargent  a good  natural  eye  for  colour,  or 
that  sound  training  in  values  which  is  the  basis  of  so 
much  that  is  best  in  modern  painting;  but  these  are 
not  the  elements  of  art  in  which  he  is  strongest  or  those 
which  his  methods  are  best  fitted  to  express. 

Of  all  those  qualities  of  things  with  which  the  art 
of  painting  deals,  form  is  the  most  concrete,  the  least 
mysterious  and  illusory,  the  least  a semblance  and  the 
most  a reality;  and  it  is  form,  therefore,  which  is  the 
most  readily  expressible  by  the  direct  and  simple 
methods  of  the  great  executants.  The  master  crafts- 


262 


SARGENT 


men — ^the  ‘painters  in  the  more  limited  sense — have 
always  been  great  draughtsmen.  There  is  a con- 
fusion, here,  of  long  standing.  We  have  been  so 
accustomed  to  consider  drawing  a matter  of  line  that 
we  have  confined  the  term  draughtsman  to  the  line- 
alists,  and  have  set  them  over  against  the  painters  as 
a separate  and  opposing  class.  The  true  division  is 
between  the  draughtsmen  by  line  and  the  draughtsmen 
by  mass ; and  the  art  of  painting  as  Hals  practised  it, 
and  as  Sargent  practises  it,  is  the  representation  of 
objects  in  their  bulk  rather  than  by  their  edges  (by 
the  analysis  of  their  projecting  or  retreating  planes) 
and  the  rendering  of  the  forms  thus  distinguished  in 
a direct  and  forcible  manner,  each  touch  of  the  brush 
answering  in  shape  and  size,  and,  as  far  as  possible, 
in  colour  and  value,  to  one  of  these  natural  planes. 

Sargent  was  an  admirable  linear  draughtsman 
before  he  was  a painter,  and  is  now  an  exquisite  linear 
draughtsman  when  he  cares  to  be  so.  He  is  a 
draughtsman  of  the  nude  figure  as  well  as  of  the  head, 
as  his  “Egyptian  Girl”  should  remind  us  if  it  were 
necessary.  It  is  his  profound  knowledge  of  form  that 
renders  his  virtuosity  possible,  as  his  virtuosity  is  the 
instantaneous  expression  of  his  vivid  sense  of  form; 
and  any  attempt  to  imitate  his  manner  without  his 
matter  is  an  invitation  to  disaster — an  invitation  which 
his  great  prestige  leads  too  many  to  extend.  If  by 
drawing  we  mean  the  power  of  clearly  seeing  and 
accurately  rendering  the  actual  forms  of  things — 


SARGENT 


263 


leaving  aside  all  questions  of  idealisation  or  expression 
by  abstract  line — Sargent  is  probably  the  greatest  of 
living  draughtsmen,  and  that  is  why  he  is  a great 
painter. 

It  is  this  power  of  accurate  drawing,  in  its  variety 
of  manifestations  from  Van  Eyck  to  Frans  Hals,  that 
has  always  marked  the  great  portrait  painters  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  imaginative  painters ; but  there  is 
another  power  that  has  often  enough  been  credited  to 
them~that  of  insight.  Thej^  have  been  thought  to 
see  below  the  surface,  to  form  a definite  conception  of 
the  character  of  their  sitters,  and  to  transfer  that  con- 
ception in  some  way  to  their  canvas  and  to  make  us 
see  it.  To  none  of  them  has  this  power  been  more 
often  credited  than  to  Sargent,  and  stories  are  told  of 
how  this  or  that  trait  has  been  brought  out  in  some 
picture  of  his  which,  though  latent  in  the  sitter,  was 
unknown  to  the  sitter’s  friends.  On  the  strength  of 
such  stories,  and  of  the  impression  of  lifelikeness  which 
his  portraits  make,  he  has  even  been  called  a psycholo- 
gist. Is  he  so,  or  was  any  artist  ever  so  ? One  may 
certainly  argue  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  painter  to 
see  what  is  and  record  it,  not  to  form  theories  of  why 
it  is — ^to  have  an  eye  for  character,  if  you  like,  not  an 
opinion  of  character.  He  may  have  an  instinct  for 
what  is  most  characteristic  in  a face,  and  accent  those 
things  in  it  which  are  essentially  individual,  without 
necessarily  having  any  clear  conception  of  the  individ- 
uality itself.  As  to  Mr.  Sargent,  there  is  a story 


264 


SARGENT 


which  may  be  neither  more  nor  less  true  than  the  others 
to  which  I have  referred.  He  had  painted  a portrait 
in  which  he  was  thought  to  have  brought  out  the  inner 
nature  of  his  sitter,  and  to  have  “seen  through  the 
veil  ” of  the  external  man.  When  asked  about  it,  he 
is  said  to  have  expressed  some  annoyance  at  the  idea, 
and  to  have  remarked : “ If  there  were  a veil,  I should 
paint  the  veil ; I can  paint  only  what  I see.”  Whether 
he  said  it  or  not,  I am  inclined  to  think  that  this  sen- 
tence expresses  the  truth.  Sargent,  like  other  artists, 
paints  his  impression  and  he  paints  it  more  frankly 
and  directly  than  many,  with  less  brooding  and  less 
search  for  subtleties — paints  it  strongly  and  without 
reservation ; and  he  leaves  the  psychology  to  those  who 
shall  look  at  the  picture.  His  affair  is  with  shapes 
and  external  aspects,  not  with  the  meaning  of  them; 
and  because  he  has  an  extraordinary  organisation  for 
seeing  these  aspects  truly  and  rendering  them  power- 
fully, with  that  slight  touch  of  exaggeration  which 
makes  them  more  vivid  to  us  than  nature,  and  with 
those  eliminations  of  the  non-essential  which  are  the 
necessity  of  art,  we  who  look  on  can  read  more  from 
the  painted  face  than  from  the  real  one,  and  credit 
him  with  having  written  all  that  we  have  read. 

One  need  not  deny  that  there  have  been  artists  who 
have  done  something  more  or  something  other  than 
this — men  of  a different  type  from  Sargent,  more 
attentive,  more  submissive,  fuller  of  a tremulous  sym- 
pathy, more  ready  to  sink  their  own  personality  in 


SARGENT 


265 


that  of  the  sitter — ^who  have  given  a more  intimate 
life  to  their  portraits  than  does  he.  Sargent  is  always 
himself, — John  Sargent,  painter, — quite  cool  and  in 
the  full  possession  of  his  powers,  with  the  most  won- 
derful eye  and  hand  for  receiving  and  recording 
impressions  of  the  look  of  things  that  are  now  to  be 
found  in  the  world.  The  masters  with  whom  it  is 
inevitable  that  he  should  be  compared  are  Hals  and 
Velasquez;  and  if  it  must  be  left  to  posterity  to  say 
how  nearly  he  has  equalled  them,  we  can  be  sure,  even 
now,  that  his  work  is  more  like  theirs  than  any  other 
that  has  been  produced  in  the  past  century. 


THE  EARLY  WORK  OF  SAINT-GAUDENS 


A S the  first  step  in  the  modem  resuscitation  of 
/%  sculpture  was  the  abandonment  of  the  stilted 
£ imitation  of  third-rate  Roman  antiques,  and 
the  study  of  the  works  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  it 
was  a happy  coincidence  that  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens 
should  have  had  much  such  an  apprenticeship  as  a 
Florentine  sculptor  of  the  fifteenth  century  might  have 
had.  His  father  was  of  southern  France,  his  mother 
was  Irish,  and  it  may  not  be  fanciful  to  see  in  the 
work  of  their  son  the  Latin  sense  of  form  combined 
with  the  poetic  feeling  of  the  Celt.  He  himself  is 
a New  Yorker,  well-nigh  from  birth,  having  been 
brought  to  this  city  from  Dublin,  his  birth-place, 
while  yet  an  infant.  He  was  early  apprenticed  to 
a New  York  cameo-cutter  and  faithfully  served  his 
time,  and  even  during  the  period  of  his  study  in  Paris 
he  devoted  half  his  working  hours  to  bread-winning 
in  the  exercise  of  his  trade.  He  attributes  much  of 
his  success  to  the  habit  of  faithful  labour  acquired 
at  this  time,  and  speaks  of  his  apprenticeship  as  “ one 
of  the  most  fortunate  things  that  ever  happened  to 
him.”  Perhaps  one  may  attribute  to  it,  also,  part  of 
that  mastery  of  low-relief  which  is  such  a noticeable 
element  in  his  artistic  equipment.  In  1868  he  went  to 


SAINT-GAUDENS 


267 


Paris  to  begin  the  serious  study  of  his  art,  and  after 
working  for  some  time  in  the  Petite  Ecole  entered 
the  studio  of  JoufFroy  in  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts. 

Many  of  the  most  brilliant  sculptors  of  our  day 
were  educated  in  the  studio  of  JoufFroy;  Falguiere 
and  Saint-Marceau  had  left  it  shortly  before  Saint- 
Gaudens  entered  it;  Mercie  was  his  fellow  student 
there  and  the  young  American  thus  became  a part 
of  the  fresh  and  vigorous  movement  of  contemporary 
sclupture.  He  afterwards  went  to  Rome,  and  finally, 
returning  to  this  country,  was  given,  in  a happy  hour, 
the  commission  for  the  Farragut  statue  in  Madi- 
son Square.  From  the  time  when  that  statue  was 
exhibited,  in  the  plaster,  at  the  Salon  of  1880,  his 
talent  was  recognised  and  his  position  assured. 

Sculpture,  in  its  primary  conception,  is  the  most 
positive  and  the  most  simple  of  all  the  arts.  Painting 
deals  with  the  visual  aspects  of  things,  with  light  and 
colour,  and  with  the  appearance  of  form.  Sculpture 
deals  only  with  actual  form.  A statue  does  not  give 
the  visual  image  of  the  form  of  a man;  it  gives  the 
form  itself.  It  follows  from  this  that  sculpture  is, 
in  a sense,  an  easier  art  than  painting.  One  often 
sees  a mere  tyro,  who  would  be  altogether  lost  among 
the  complications  and  conflicting  difficulties  of  paint- 
ing, produce,  by  measurement  and  the  use  of  the 
calipers,  a bust  which  has  a certain  approximate  truth 
to  the  forms  of  nature.  But  in  this  simplicity  of  the 
art  lies  also  its  real  difficulty;  for  the  multifold  aims 


268 


THE  EARLY  WORK  OF 


and  difficulties  of  painting  are  also  multifold  resources 
for  the  artist,  and  a success  in  any  one  direction  makes 
a successful  work  of  art;  but  the  sculptor,  who  has 
only  one  difficulty  to  contend  with,  has  also  only  one 
means  with  which  to  succeed.  If  he  fails  in  form 
he  fails  in  everything.  And  form  being  the  most 
tangible — ^the  most  accurately  measureable — of  all 
qualities  of  things  that  art  has  to  do  with,  and  the 
least  mysterious  and  elusive,  sculpture  is  of  the  arts 
the  one  most  likely  to  faU  into  flat  commonplace  and 
the  most  difficult  to  keep  up  in  the  region  of  art  and 
out  of  the  region  of  imitation.  Nothing  is  more 
tiresome  than  any  sculpture  but  the  best.  A painter 
may  be  far  from  possessing  the  highest  genius,  yet 
find  in  some  part  of  his  many-sided  art  an  escape  from 
the  commonplace  and  the  real;  but  a mediocre  sculp- 
tor is  lost.  The  sculptor  must  be  a genius  or  a nobody. 

Here,  then,  has  been  the  great  problem  of  the  sculp- 
tors of  all  ages,  and  they  have  met  it  in  various  ways. 
The  noble  abstraction  of  Pheidias  degenerated,  in  the 
later  Greek  and  Roman  work,  into  a dead  convention- 
ality, and,  the  works  of  Pheidias  being  unknown  to 
them,  the  artists  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  struck  out 
a new  road  for  themselves  and  found  the  means,  by  a 
vague  elusiveness  of  modelling,  to  express  all  their 
new  and  peculiarly  modern  interest  in  individuality  of 
character  and  the  personality  of  their  models,  without 
ever  falling  into  the  dry  literalness  of  the  plaster  cast. 
In  the  earlier  part  of  the  last  century  dead-alive  con- 


SAINT-GAUDENS 


S69 


ventionalism  was  again  regnant,  and  when  the  sculp- 
tors of  yesterday,  following  the  lead  of  the  painters 
who  had  already  begun  the  movement,  turned  again 
to  the  independent  study  of  nature,  they  naturally 
reverted  to  the  study  of  Renaissance  models.  In  the 
sculpture  of  the  Renaissance  only  could  they  find 
nature  represented  as  she  appeared  to  them.  There 
only  could  they  find  the  modern  man  with  his  pro- 
nounced individuality  and  his  special  development  of 
character,  and  there  only  could  they  find  the  means 
of  representing  him  in  their  art.  And  so,  jumping 
over  four  hundred  years,  jumping  over  the  inroad  of 
academicism  and  the  consequent  stupefaction  of  art, 
the  best  sculpture  of  to-day  is  the  legitimate  suc- 
cessor to  that  of  the  fifteenth  century — its  successor, 
not  its  imitator.  The  sculptors  of  to-day  are  work- 
ing in  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance,  but  the  very 
essence  of  that  spirit  is  personality — individualism — 
independent  study. 

Now,  having  a general  view  of  the  movement 
of  which  he  is  a part,  we  are  prepared  to  approach 
the  work  of  Saint-Gaudens  himself,  and  to  search 
there  the  qualities  of  his  school  and  their  particular 
development  by  his  own  personality. 

The  feeling  for  individuality, — ^the  modem  idea 
that  a man  is  not  merely  one  of  a species,  but  is  a 
character, — the  caring  less  for  the  perfection  of  a race 
and  more  for  the  man  himself  as  he  is,  with  his  defects 
as  well  as  his  merits,  is  one  of  the  noticeable  qualities 


270 


THE  EARLY  WORK  OF 


of  Mr.  Saint-Gaudens’s  work.  It  is  easy  to  see  in  his 
Farragut  how  he  has  been  penetrated  with  the  per- 
sonality of  his  model  and  has  bent  himself  to  its  expres- 
sion. The  statue  is  as  living  as  one  of  Mino  da 
Fiesole’s  Florentines,  who  died  four  hundred  years 
ago,  and  whom  we  should  be  quite  prepared  to  meet 
in  the  streets  as  we  come  out  of  the  museum  where 
his  likeness  is  preserved.  There  is  no  cold  convention- 
alism, neither  is  there  any  romanticism  or  melodrama, 
but  a penetrating  imagination  which  has  got  at  the 
heart  of  the  man  and  given  him  to  us  “ in  his  habit 
as  he  lived,”  cool,  ready,  determined,  standing  firmly, 
feet  apart,  upon  his  swaying  deck,  a sailor,  a gentle- 
man, and  a hero.  In  his  Randall  statue  at  Sailors’ 
Snug  Harbor,  there  is  much  of  the  same  quality,  for 
though,  from  the  lack  of  authentic  portraits,  this  lat- 
ter was  necessarily  a pure  work  of  imagination,  yet 
it  is  none  the  less  a portrait  of  a man — an  individual 
— if  not  precisely  the  Randall  whose  name  it  bears. 
There  is  nothing  of  the  ideal  Greek  hero  about  this 
rugged  block  of  humanity.  This  kindly,  keen,  alert, 
old  man,  sharp-eyed,  hooked-nosed,  firm-mouthed, 
with  a sea-breeze  in  his  look,  is  a modem  and  an 
American  and,  one  would  say,  an  old  sailor,  with 
crotchets  and  eccentricities  as  well  as  a strong  head 
and  a good  heart.^ 

* I believe  that,  in  point  of  fact,  Randall  was  not  a sailor. 
The  text  refers  to  the  type  selected  by  the  sculptor,  not  to 
the  historic  man. 


SAINT-GAUDENS 


271 


Another  and  somewhat  later  work  in  the  same  line 
of  what  we  may  call  ideal  portraiture  is  the  “ Deacon 
Chapin,”  which  is  perhaps  the  finest  embodiment  of 
Puritanism  in  our  art.  Surely  those  old  searchers  for 
a liberty  of  conscience  that  should  not  include  the 
liberty  to  differ  from  themselves  could  not  fail  to 
recognise  in  this  swift-striding,  stem-looking  old  man, 
clasping  his  Bible  as  Moses  clasped  the  tables  of  the 
law  and  holding  his  peaceful  walking-stick  with  as 
firm  a grip  as  the  handle  of  a sword — surely  they 
could  not  fail  to  recognise  in  him  a man  after  their 
own  hearts.  But  he  is  not  merely  a Puritan  of  the 
Puritans,  he  is  a man  also,  a rough-hewn  piece  of 
humanity  enough,  with  plenty  of  the  old  Adam  about 
him;  and  one  feels  that  so  and  not  otherwise  must 
some  veritable  old  Puritan  deacon  have  looked. 

In  these  statues  it  is  easy,  I say,  to  see  the  spirit  of 
the  Renaissance,  but  to  show  the  appropriation  of 
Renaissance  methods  and  the  rare  technical  skill  with 
which  they  are  employed  in  the  embodiment  of  this 
spirit  is  a more  difficult  task,  and  in  attempting  it  I 
wish  more  especially  to  draw  attention  to  a class  of 
work  which  was  particularly  characteristic  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  and  in  the  revival  of  which  Mr. 
Saint-Gaudens  seems  to  me  one  of  the  most  successful 
of  modern  sculptors.  I mean  low-relief.  Something 
of  what  he  can  do  in  this  way  any  one  may  see  in  the 
allegorical  figures  on  the  base  of  the  Farragut  monu- 
ment, and,  I remember,  these  figures  were  even  more 


272 


THE  EARLY  WORK  OF 


of  a revelation  to  me  of  his  ability  than  was  the 
statue  itself.  For  the  question  whether  or  not  a given 
statue  is  great  and  heroic  in  conception  one  can  only 
answer  to  one’s  self,  and  one  can  never  be  quite  sure 
that  the  answer  is  the  true  one;  but  the  question 
whether  a sculptor  has  the  knowledge  and  the  skill 
to  handle  low-relief,  that  one  can  quite  definitely  settle. 
One  can  even  hope  to  convince  another  that  his  con- 
clusion is  correct. 

The  sculptors  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  may  be 
said,  in  a sense,  almost  to  have  invented  low-relief. 
In  the  struggle  to  depict  the  infinite  variety  of  things 
that  was  necessary  to  their  modem  nature,  and  yet 
to  avoid  the  mere  matter-of-fact,  which  is  fatal  to  art, 
— in  their  desire  to  be  real  without  being  realistic, — 
they  naturally  turned  to  a part  of  their  art  which  is 
the  nearest  akin  to  painting,  and  they  pushed  it  to  a 
degree  of  perfection  which  has  never  been  known 
before  or  since.  Low-relief  does  not  deal  with  actual 
form,  but  with  the  appearance  of  form,  and  the  more 
perfect  it  is  the  farther  it  is  apt  to  be  from  an  actual 
copying  of  the  forms  of  nature.  The  common  con- 
ception of  a medallion  is  probably  that  it  is  half  of  a 
head  placed  upon  a flat  surface,  but  this  conception  is 
the  farthest  possible  from  being  the  true  one.  Even 
the  idea  that  while  the  projection  is  much  less  than  in 
nature  the  relations  of  projection  remain  the  same, 
is  not  much  nearer  the  tmth.  In  good  relief  work, 
for  instance,  the  head  frequently  projects  more  than 


SAINT-GAUDENS 


the  shoulder.  The  fact  is  that  low-relief  is  a kind 
of  drawing  by  means  of  light  and  shade,  the  difference 
between  it  and  any  other  kind  of  drawing  being  that 
the  lights  and  shadows  are  produced  not  by  white 
paper  or  crayon  strokes,  but  by  the  falling  of  the 
light  upon  the  elevations  and  depressions  of  the  sur- 
face of  the  relief ; and  these  elevations  and  depressions 
are  regulated  solely  by  the  amount  of  light  or  shadow 
which  the  sculptor  desires  and  are  almost  arbitrary  in 
their  relations  to  the  projection  of  the  model.  As  the 
painter  concentrates  the  light  and  shade  upon  the 
head,  so  does  the  sculptor,  by  increasing  its  projection ; 
as  the  painter  varies  the  tone  of  his  background,  so 
does  the  sculptor,  by  slight  undulations  which  catch 
the  light,  or  turn  into  pale  shadow,  vary  his : he  even 
uses  outline  and  cuts  fine  trenches  of  shadow  round 
the  edges  of  his  figures  here  and  there,  where  greater 
definition  seems  desirable.  He  can  produce  the  effect 
of  distance  by  flattening  his  modelling  and  so  reducing 
both  the  light  and  shadow,  and  he  can  mark  the  impor- 
tance of  any  part  which  is  most  interesting  to  him  by 
giving  it  greater  relief.  His  figures  now  lose  them- 
selves utterly  in  the  background  and  now  emerge  into 
sudden  crispness  of  form  as  may  best  suit  his  purpose. 
His  relief  is  a picture  which  he  fashions  with  delicate 
use  of  light  and  dark,  thinking  always  of  the  effect 
of  the  whole,  and  never  of  the  imitation  of  any  one 
piece  of  form. 

Low-relief  is  thus  an  art  nearly  allied  to  painting 


274 


THE  EARLY  WORK  OF 


and  one  which  deals  with  aspects  rather  than  with 
facts,  and  its  exercise  calls  for  the  highest  powers  of 
perception  and  execution  which  the  artist  possesses. 
The  lower  the  relief  the  greater — the  more  marvellous 
— the  delicacy  of  modelling  required  to  give  the 
proper  relations  of  light  and  shadow.  It  is  at  the 
same  time,  for  him  who  understands  it,  the  most 
delightful  resource  against  the  sculptor’s  greatest 
danger,  the  matter-of-fact.  Therefore  it  has  been  a 
favourite  art  with  sculptors,  and  success  in  it  is  one 
of  the  best  available  measures,  both  of  the  power  and 
purity  of  artistic  conception,  and  of  the  technical 
ability,  of  a given  sculptor.  Saint-Gaudens’s  success 
in  it  has  been  very  great.  Such  reliefs  as  that  of  the 
two  Butler  children,  for  instance,  must  be  seen  and 
studied  in  the  originals  to  be  understood,  it  being 
impossible  for  any  drawing  or  photograph  to  give  an 
adequate  idea  of  the  sweet  fluency  of  modelling  and 
of  the  marvellous  economy  of  means  (getting  with  an 
infinitesimal  projection  enough  variety  of  shadow  to 
convey  a complete  impression  of  nature)  which  place 
them  among  the  most  remarkable  productions  of  our 
times. 

That  they  are  lovely  in  themselves,  full  of  sweet, 
pure  feeling,  of  beautiful  composition  and  subtle 
grace  of  line,  reproductions  may  indeed  help  one 
to  see,  but  the  exquisite  fineness,  which  is  power,  of 
the  workmanship,  the  beauty  of  surface,  caressed 
into  delicate  form  which  in  a direct  light  is  invisible, 


SAINT-GAUDENS 


275 


nothing  but  the  reliefs  themselves  can  show  one. 
They  are  masterpieces  of  skill  and  knowledge. 

So  far  we  have  been  considering  Mr.  Saint-Gau- 
dens’s  work  in  professed  portraiture,  whether  in  the 
round  or  in  relief,  and  have  seen  in  it  the  two  domi- 
nating qualities  of  the  Renaissance, — individuality  of 
conception  and  delicate  suavity  of  modelling.  We 
have  now  to  consider  a more  purely  ideal  class 
of  works,  such  as  the  caryatids  for  the  house  of 
Cornelius  Vanderbilt  and  the  angels  of  the  Morgan 
monument  (so  unfortunately  destroyed  by  fire),  and 
to  see  how  in  them  the  same  qualities  are  combined  and 
carried  out  together.  At  first  sight  the  caryatids 
might  seem  more  Greek  than  Renaissance  in  feeling. 
The  costume,  the  large  amplitude  of  form,  the  dignity 
and  repose  of  the  figures,  are  very  Greek.  But  one 
soon  sees  that  there  is  something  there  which  is  other 
than  Greek.  The  modem  mind  has  been  at  work,  and 
in  these  ideal  figures  there  is  a vague  air  of  por- 
traiture. If  they  are  not  women  who  have  lived,  they 
are  women  who  might  have  lived  and  have  loved  and, 
assuredly,  have  been  loved.  Serenely  beautiful  as 
they  are,  one  does  not  feel  before  them,  as  before  the 
great  Greek  statues,  the  awe  and  admiration  of 
abstract  beauty,  but  rather  the  kind  of  tender  per- 
sonal feeling  that  the  Femme  Inconnue  of  the  Louvre 
inspires.  They  are  not  goddesses,  but  women ; alike, 
yet  different,  each,  one  feels,  with  her  own  character, 
her  own  virtues,  and,  perhaps,  her  own  faults.  Here, 


276 


THE  EARLY  WORK  OF 


then,  is  the  note  of  the  Renaissance,  the  love  of  individ- 
uality, and  its  complement  in  the  manner  of  the 
execution  is  equally  present.  These  figures  are  almost 
entirely  detached,  and  yet  in  the  paleness  of  the 
modelling  and  in  the  avoidance  of  deep  hollows  and 
dark  shadows, — the  chisel  never  quite  going  into  the 
depths  of  the  form,  but  leaving,  as  it  were,  a diaphan- 
ous veil  between  it  and  our  eyes  and  a mystery  for  the 
imagination  to  penetrate, — we  find  even  here  the  prin- 
ciple of  low-relief. 

We  find  this  principle  of  low-relief  even  more 
readily  in  the  angels  of  the  Morgan  tomb,  and  I 
think,  to  go  back  a little,  we  can  find  it  even  in  the 
Farragut.  For,  though  the  ruggedness  of  the  type, 
the  material,  and  the  necessity  for  distant  effect 
demanded  depth  of  shadow,  we  find  in  the  very  means 
of  getting  this  shadow  the  lesson  of  low-relief,  that  it 
is  the  appearance  of  nature  and  not  the  absolute  fact 
that  is  of  importance.  The  figure  was  first  modelled 
in  the  nude  with  great  care,  but,  when  Mr.  Saint-Gau- 
dens  came  to  put  the  costume  upon  it,  he  had  often  to 
disregard  the  actual  form  underneath  and  to  work 
for  the  effect  of  his  final  surfaces  on  the  eye.  In 
order  to  get  the  look  of  nature  he  had  to  disregard  the 
absolute  fact. 

I have  dwelt  at  considerable  length  on  the  likeness 
of  Saint-Gaudens’s  work  to  that  of  an  epoch  which  he 
has  deeply  studied  and  deeply  loves,  because  it  seemed 
to  me  that  in  that  way  only  I could  show  its  great 


SAINT-GAUDENS 


277 

technical  merit;  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  his 
work  is  not  original.  On  the  contrary,  he  could  not 
show  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  if  he  were  not 
strongly  individual.  As  I have  said,  the  essence  of  the 
Renaissance  spirit  is  individuality,  and  in  nothing  is 
Saint-Gaudens  more  like  the  great  artists  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  than  in  that  he  is  eminently  original 
and  that  the  personal  note  is  strongly  felt  in  all  his 
work.  His  figures  are  such  as  no  other  man  than  him- 
self could  have  made  them;  his  types  of  beauty  are 
those  that  appeal  most  to  his  own  nature  and  his  own 
peculiar  temperament.  This  temperament  one  cannot 
quite  analyse,  but  one  can  readily  discover  one  or  two 
elements  that  enter  largely  into  it.  Two  of  these 
are  virility  and  purity.  The  manly  directness  and 
straightforward  simplicity  of  such  works  as  the  Far- 
ragut  and  the  Chapin  are  among  their  most  readily 
visible  characteristics  and  the  caryatids  or  the  angels 
of  the  Morgan  monument  are  as  pure  as  they  are 
lovely.  In  the  sweet-flowing  grace  of  movement,  in 
the  refined  beauty  of  face  and  form  of  these  angels, 
all  intent  upon  their  celestial  harpings,  sensuousness 
never  touches  the  limits  of  sensuality.  They  are  as 
pure  as  a madonna  of  Fra  Angelico’s. 

The  sculptor  of  such  works  as  these  was  already  an 
jftrtist  of  intelligence,  learning,  and  imagination,  with 
a great  and  distinguished  talent,  who  had  done  much 
and  from  whom  we  were  sure  of  far  more. 


SAINT-GAUDENS’S  “ SHERMAN  ” 


NO  event  has  ever  taken  place  in  this  country 
of  equal  artistic  importance  with  the  unveil- 
ing of  the  heroic  equestrian  statue  of  General 
Sherman  by  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens.  Our  public 
monuments  are  not  always  such  as  a civilised  nation 
should  be  proud  of,  but  we  have  unquestionably 
produced,  both  in  painting  and  in  sculpture,  much 
respectable  and  some  excellent  work.  In  the  Sher- 
man statue  we  have  much  more  than  this — we  have, 
in  an  American  city,  a monument  which,  in  con- 
ception and  in  execution,  is  among  the  half-dozen 
masterpieces  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  The  history 
of  such  a work  must  always  be  interesting,  and  it  is 
well  to  set  down  now,  before  they  are  forgotten,  the 
main  facts  and  dates  of  its  production. 

Eleven  years  elapsed  between  the  commissioning  of 
the  statue,  in  189S,  and  the  unveiling  on  Memorial 
Day,  May  30,  1903.  Undoubtedly,  the  time  seemed 
long  to  the  committee  in  charge  of  the  work,  but 
Saint-Gaudens  is  one  of  those  artists  for  whom  it  is 
worth  while  to  wait.  During  three  of  the  eleven 
years  his  work  was  much  interrupted  by  a grave  ill- 
ness ; during  the  other  eight  years  he  was  more  or  less 
constantly  at  work  upon  the  group,  and  he  estimates 

278 


SAINT-GAUDENS:  SHERMAN 


\- 


■ -<' 


SAINT-GAUDENS’S  “ SHERMAN  ” 279 


that  it  cost  him  about  three  years  of  actual  labour. 
His  infinite  painstaking,  his  constant  revision,  his 
inability  to  rest  satisfied  with  anything  if  he  could 
conceive  of  a possible  betterment,  spread  the  three 
years  out  over  the  eight. 

The  sketch  was  completed  in  a few  months  and 
accepted  by  the  committee;  in  it  the  essential  features 
of  the  group  were  fixed,  and  they  have  not  been 
materially  altered.  This  is  important  as  showing 
that  the  conception  of  the  Victory-led  rider  ante- 
dated by  some  years  any  possible  knowledge  of  the 
somewhat  similar  conception  of  Begas’s  “Emperor 
William  ” in  Berlin.  By  a strange  coincidence,  then, 
the  same  idea,  wholly  new  in  art,  seems  to  have 
occurred  at  about  the  same  time  to  two  artists  widely 
distant  in  space.  In  the  intervals  of  other  work,  dur- 
ing the  next  five  years,  the  horse  and  rider  were 
modelled  on  a small  scale  and  the  Victory  was  studied 
in  the  nude.  In  1897  Mr.  Saint-Gaudens  went  to 
Paris  and  there  began  the  full-sized  group,  devoting 
most  of  his  time  to  it,  and  in  1899  the  horse  and  rider, 
without  the  Victory,  were  exhibited  at  the  Salon  of 
the  Champ  de  Mars.  The  merit  of  the  statue  was 
at  once  recognised,  and  it  was  given  a place  of  honour 
and  greatly  praised  by  artists  and  critics.  At  the 
Paris  Exposition  of  1900  the  whole  group,  in  plaster, 
was  seen  for  the  first  time,  and  for  it  and  a group  of 
earlier  works  the  sculptor  was  awarded  a grand  prix. 

In  spite  of  this  success,  he  was  not  satisfied  with 


280  SAINT-GAUDENS’S  « SHERMAN  ” 


the  work.  It  was  to  be  cast  in  Paris,  but  returning, 
seriously  ill,  to  this  country,  he  brought  a plaster 
cast  with  him,  built  a studio  near  Windsor,  Vt.,  in 
which  to  set  it  up,  and  began  making  changes.  He 
remodelled  the  head  of  the  Victory,  her  wings  and 
palm  branch,  the  cloak  of  the  rider,  and  various 
smaller  details,  and  sent  the  remodelled  parts  to  the 
bronze-founders  in  Paris.  The  group,  with  these 
changes,  was  then  sent,  still  in  plaster,  to  the  Pan- 
American  Exposition  at  Buffalo,  where  it  was  the 
principal  cause  of  an  extraordinary  honour  to  the 
artist.  The  jury  of  the  section  of  Fine  Arts,  com- 
posed of  painters,  sculptors,  and  architects,  unani- 
mously recommended  that  a Special  Diploma  and 
Medal  of  Honour,  apart  from  and  above  all  other 
awards  in  the  Exposition,  be  created  for  Mr.  Saint- 
Gaudens,  and  the  recommendation  was  adopted  by 
the  general  jury,  and  the  award  was  made.  This 
success,  like  former  ones,  seems  to  have  been  a signal 
to  the  artist  to  recommence  his  struggle  for  perfec- 
tion. The  bronze  was  brought  to  Windsor  and  set 
up  in  the  open  air,  and  experiments  in  gilding  and 
toning  were  begun,  while  the  base  was  remodelled  and 
twice  cut  in  granite.  Finally,  in  the  spring  of  1903, 
the  work  was  ready  to  be  shipped  to  New  York 
and  placed  upon  its  pedestal  in  the  Plaza,  near  the 
entrance  to  Central  Park. 

The  type  of  artistic  temperament  which  leads  to 
continual  changes  and  reworkings  is  not  without  its 


SAINT-GAUDENS’S  “ SHERMAN  ” 281 


special  dangers  which  a more  positive  and  self- 
assured  mind — what  the  French  call  an  “ esprit 
primesautier  ” — escapes.  It  has  even  happened  to 
Mr.  Saint-Gaudens  to  produce  a work  the  final  form 
of  which  he  would  now  admit  to  be  inferior  to  the 
original  conception.  When,  however,  the  original 
conception  is  clear  and  tenaciously  held,  the  revision 
of  details  tends  only  to  greater  purity  and  beauty 
of  statement,  as  it  has  done  in  the  present  instance. 
Sherman  had  seemed  to  the  boyish  Saint-Gaudens  the 
typical  American  hero ; to  the  matured  artist  he  had 
sat  for  an  admirable  bust.  When  the  sculptor  was 
called  upon  to  prepare  the  monument  to  the  great 
soldier,  he  was  equipped  with  a knowledge  of  his  sub- 
ject which  the  designer  of  a posthumous  statue  rarely 
possesses,  and  with  a genuine  enthusiasm  for  his  task. 
His  idea  came  to  him  in  such  definite  and  vigorous 
form  that  his  subsequent  labour  was  but  the  refining 
of  details;  he  was  sure  of  his  masterpiece  from  the 
start. 

The  Sherman  monument  is  the  latest  term  in  the 
long  evolution  of  a remarkable  talent.  In  its  earlier 
stages  this  talent  might  have  seemed  more  decora- 
tive— almost  more  pictorial — ^than  purely  sculptural. 
To  many  it  appeared  that  Saint-Gaudens’s  best 
things  were  his  dainty  portrait  reliefs  of  women  and 
children,  his  exquisite  caryatids  and  angelic  figures; 
wonderful  play  of  line  and  a delicate  caressing 
of  surface  seemed  his  most  notable  characteristics. 


£82  SAINT-GAUDENS’S  “ SHERMAN  ” 


These  characteristics  he  has  retained,  but  in  one  after 
another  of  his  more  important  works  he  has  shown 
an  ever-increasing  grasp  of  structural  form  and  a 
steady  growth  in  masculine  vigour  of  conception, 
until  he  has  revealed  himself  a great  sculptor  in  the 
stricter  sense,  as  he  was  already  a great  artist. 

The  group  is  about  twice  the  size  of  life  in  each 
dimension,  so  that  the  figure  of  the  General,  if  stand- 
ing, would  be  about  twelve  feet  high.  Tall  and  erect 
he  sits  his  horse,  his  military  cloak  bellying  out 
behind  him,  his  trousers  strapped  down  over  his  shoes, 
his  hat  in  his  right  hand,  dropping  at  arm’s  length 
behind  the  knee,  and  his  bare  head,  like  that  of  an 
old  eagle,  looking  straight  forward.  The  horse  is 
as  long  and  thin  as  his  rider,  with  a tremendous  stride ; 
and  his  big  head,  closely  reined  in,  twitches  viciously 
at  the  bridle.  Before  the  horse  and  rider,  half  walks, 
half  flies,  a splendid  winged  figure — one  arm  out- 
stretched, the  other  brandishing  the  palm — Victory 
leading  them  on.  She  has  a certain  fierce  wildness 
of  aspect,  but  her  rapt  gaze  and  half-open  mouth 
indicate  the  seer  of  visions:  peace  is  ahead  and  an 
end  of  war.  On  the  bosom  of  her  gown  is  broidered 
the  eagle  of  the  United  States,  for  she  is  an  American 
Victory,  as  this  is  an  American  man  on  an  American 
horse ; and  the  broken  pine  bough  beneath  the  horse’s 
feet  localises  the  victorious  march — it  is  the  march 
through  Georgia  to  the  sea. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  things  about  the  group 


SAINT-GAUDENS’S  “ SHERMAN  ” £8S 


is  the  extraordinary  sense  of  movement  and  of  irre- 
sistible force  conveyed  by  it.  The  gait  of  the  horse 
is  only  a quick  walk,  but  horse  and  rider  and  striding 
Victory  move  onward  with  a rush,  and  one  feels  that 
nothing  can  arrest  their  progress.  The  base  of  the 
statue  is  not  of  bronze,  as  is  usual,  but  is  cut  in  a 
pinkish  granite  like  that  of  the  pedestal,  and,  though 
it  has  been  gilded  like  the  figures,  the  difference  in 
colour  and  texture  which  remains  seems  to  aid  the 
sense  of  motion  by  separating  the  figures  from  the 
ground  which  they  move  over  rather  than  grow  out 
of.  The  whole  treatment  of  colour  and  texture  is 
rather  daring  and  altogether  successful,  and  gives  the 
monument  a decorative  beauty  and  splendour  which 
does  not  detract  from  its  inherent  gravity.  The 
Greeks,  builders  of  chryselephantine  statues,  would 
have  appreciated  this.  A most  interesting  artifice, 
not  found  in  the  original  sketch,  is  the  change  of 
level  in  the  base.  The  ground  slopes  slightly  upward 
from  the  rear  until  it  is  highest  just  in  front  of  the 
forefoot  of  the  horse,  then  falls  rapidly  to  the  front. 
This  gives  greater  height  to  the  figure  of  Sherman, 
while  increasing  the  sense  of  strain  and  push  in  the 
hind-quarters  of  the  horse;  but  its  most  remarkable 
effect  is  in  giving  a sort  of  downward  flutter  to  the 
Victory,  so  that,  though  marching  on  the  ground,  she 
seems  newly  lighted  there  from  a previous  aerial 
existence.  From  every  point  of  view  the  composition 
builds  up  superbly.  The  flow  of  line  in  wing  and 


284  SAINT-GAUDENS’S  “ SHERMAN  ” 

limb  and  drapery  is  perfect;  the  heads  are  magnifi- 
cent in  characterisation;  the  anatomical  structure, 
human  and  equine,  is  thoroughly  understood ; and  the 
surface  modelling  is  beautiful  in  the  extreme. 

The  finest  equestrian  statue  of  modem  times  is 
unquestionably  the  earliest  of  all  in  date,  the  “ Gatta- 
melata”  by  Donatello  in  Padua.  In  serene  dignity 
and  restrained  strength  it  has  never  been  approached, 
and  is  perhaps  unapproachable.  Its  air  of  quiet 
courage  and  determination  makes  the  picturesque 
swagger  of  Verrocchio’s  CoUeone  ” at  Venice  seem 
almost  theatrical  by  comparison.  We  can  only  guess 
what  Leonardo  would  have  done  or  what  Michel- 
angelo might  have  done,  and  there  are  really  no 
more  equestrian  statues  of  high  rank  until  our  own 
day.  Artists  even  forgot  how  a horse  walks,  and 
critics  still  repeat  that  the  gait  represented  by  Dona- 
tello and  Verrocchio  is  an  “ amble.”  Of  more  recent 
works  the  two  finest  seem  to  me  to  be  the  “Jeanne 
d’Arc  ” by  Fremiet,  in  the  Place  des  Pyramides,  and 
the  other  “ Jeanne  d’Arc  ” by  Paul  Dubois.  Fremiet’s 
statue,  in  its  earlier  form,  was  infinitely  charming 
rather  than  great.  He  has  remodelled  it,  and  the 
general  opinion  seems  to  be  that  the  added  robustness 
of  the  figure  has  not  attained  to  grandeur,  while  there 
has  been  some  loss  of  charm.  Dubois’s  Jeanne  is  also 
a slim  and  dainty  figure  with  a certain  quaintness  of 
attitude  and  a quality  of  spiritual  beauty.  Both  of 
these  statues  are,  technically,  masterpieces,  but  they 


SAINT-GAUDENS’S  “ SHERMAN  ” 285 


are  not  more  masterly  in  execution  than  is  Saint 
Gaudens’s  ‘‘  Sherman,”  and  they  are,  perhaps,  less 
imaginative  and  original  in  conception,  and  have  cer- 
tainly less  of  heoric  grandeur.  Before  them  both, 
and  immediately  after  the  Colleone,”  if  after  it  at 
all,  I should  be  inclined  to  place  the  most  recent  of 
the  world’s  great  equestrian  statues. 


i 'i]v>  1 

MMSimii 


INDEX 


Artists  are  entered  under  the  name  by  which  they  are  most 
commonly  called,  as  Perugino,  Raphael,  Titian. 


Adams  (Herbert),  influenced 
by  Renaissance  sculpture,  3 
.(Esthetic  Cult,  the,  169 
Allston  (Washington),  really 
of  English  school,  144 
Amiens,  Museum,  decorations 
in,  210,  213,  214,  219-221 
Angelico  (Fra  Giovanni,  da 
Frisole),  37,  277 
the  simplicity  of  igno- 
rance, 222-223 

Art,  American,  future  of,  148 
Art,  governmental  organiza- 
tion of,  in  France,  193 
Arts  and  Crafts  movement, 
142 


Baldry  (A.  L.),  his  criticism 
of  Millais  as  landscape 
painter,  169 

Barocci  (Federigo),  his  influ- 
ence on  Rubens,  99 
exaggerated  curves,  99 

Bastien-Lepage  (Jules),  nat- 
uralism of,  141 

Baudry  ( Paul- J acques-Aim^) , 
140,  148 

temporary  eclipse  of  his 
reputation,  143 
a product  of  the  academ- 
ic system,  193 
birth  and  early  training, 
194 


Baudry — Continued 

pensioned  by  town  and 
department,  194 
student  days  in  Paris, 
194-195 

Prix  de  Rome  at  twenty- 
one,  195 

study  in  Italy  and  early 
works,  195-196 
earliest  mural  paintings, 
196 

honours  and  commissions, 

196 

preparation  for  the 
Op^ra,  196-197 
copies  of  Michelangelo 
and  Raphael,  197 
member  of  the  Institute, 

197 

volunteer  in  Franco-Ger- 
man war,  197 
exhibition  of  decorations 
for  Op6ra,  197 
later  works,  198 
death,  198 

parallel  with  Raphael, 

199 

an  absorbent,  199 

his  borrowings,  199 

his  successive  manners, 

200 

early  portraits,  201 
and  easel  pictures,  202 
middle  portraits,  202 


287 


S88 


INDEX 


Baudry — Continued 

great  decorations,  143, 
203-206 

intellectual  merit  of,  203- 
204 

his  style  contrasted  with 
that  of  Puvis,  204 
liis  power  of  composi- 
tion, 205 

of  drawing,  143,  20S- 
206 

his  later  manner,  206-207 
virtuosity,  207 
completeness  of  his 
achievement,  208 
lack  of  great  originality, 
208 

admirableness  of  his  art, 
209 

'Baudry,  works  of 

Theseus  in  the  Labyrinth, 

195 

Jacob  and  the  Angel,  195 
Fortune  and  the  Child, 

195,  196 

copy  of  Raphael’s  Juris- 
prudence, 196,  200-201 
Punishment  of  a Vestal, 

196 

The  Wave  and  the  Pearl, 

196,  202,  207 

Diana  Driving  away 
Love,  198,  202,  207 
Truth,  208 

The  Five  Cities  of  Italy, 
196,  201 

Glorification  of  the  Law, 
198,  201,  207 
St.  Hubert,  198 
Ceiling  for  W.  H,  Van- 
derbilt, 198 

Ceiling  for  Cornelius 
Vanderbilt,  198 
L’Enlevement  de  Psychd, 
198 

Ceiling  for  Count 


B audry — C ontinued 

Henckel  Donners- 

marck,  203 

The  Muses,  Op^ra,  203, 
208 

The  Judgment  of  Paris, 
Op^ra,  204,  206 
Pastoral  Music,  Op6ra, 
205 

Military  Music,  Op6ra, 
205 

Portrait  of  Guizot,  201 
Portrait  of  Madeleine 
Brohan,  201 

Portrait  of  Comte  de 
Palikao,  198,  207 
Portrait  of  Mme.  Bern- 
stein and  Son,  198,  208 
Portrait  of  Louis  de 
Montebello,  208 
B^gas  (Reynold),  his  statue 
of  Emperor  William,  208 
Bell  (Malcolm),  defends 
Burne-Jones,  179-180 
Bellini  (Gentile),  48 
Bellini  (Giovanni),  Durer’s 
opinion  of,  49 
anecdote  of  with  Diirer, 
91-92 

Bellini,  works  of 

The  Frari  Madonna,  49 
Madonna  of  San  Zac- 
caria,  49 

Saints  Jerome,  Christo- 
pher and  Augustine,  49 
Berenson  (Bernhard),  his 
characterization  of  Perugi- 
no,  11, 

his  theory  of  “ space  com- 
position,” 17 

Bernini  (Giovanni  Lorenzo), 
99 

Bitumen,  ravages  of,  136, 
151 

Wappers’s  use  of,  150- 
151 


INDEX 


289 


Blake  (William),  question  of 
his  sanity,  127-128 
his  lack  of  education, 
128 

his  apprenticeship,  128 
his  hatred  of  the  colour- 
ists and  of  chiaroscuro, 
128 

his  exaltation  of  defini- 
tion, 128 

inability  to  work  from 
nature,  128-129 
his  visions,  127,  129,  132 
advantage  of  his  dry 
manner,  129 

lack  of  precision  in  his 
writings,  129-130 
belief  in  Ossian  and 
Rowley,  130 

lyrical  beauty  of  early 
poems,  130 

his  “ Prophetic  Books,” 
130 

their  vagueness  and 
lack  of  form,  130, 
131 

merits  and  faults  as  an 
artist,  131 

feeling  for  the  weird  and 
for  style,  131 
“Inventions  to  the  Book 
of  Job,”  131 

reminiscences  of  Michel- 
angelo, 131 

“ The  Morning  Stars 
Singing  Together,”  132 
Blashfield  (Edwin  Howland), 
148 

his  anecdote  of  Bonnat 
and  Maspero,  184 
Boecklin  (Arnold),  his  imag- 
inative genius,  142 
Boldini  (Giovanni),  change 
of  scale  in  his  work, 
185 

virtuosity  of,  207 


Bolton  (Charles  Knowles), 
his  life  of  Saskia,  115 
his  method  described, 
116-117 

Bonifazio  Venetiano,  50 

Bonnat  (L6on),  anecdote  of 
with  Maspero,  184 
his  decorations  in  the 
Pantheon,  217 

Bordone  (Paris),  50 

Boston  Public  Library,  deco- 
rations in,  75,  216,  225,  255- 
256 

Boston,  Trinity  Church,  deco- 
rations in,  147 

Botticelli  (Alessandro  Filip- 
pi,  called),  19,  64 

Boucher  (Francois),  com- 
pared to  Tiepolo,  61 

Bramante  (Donato  Lomazzo, 
called),  Michelangelo’s 
praise  of,  28 

Breal  (Auguste),  defence  of 
Rembrandt’s  realism,  121- 
123 

on  Rembrandt’s  drawing, 
125 

Breton  (Jules),  his  opinion 
of  Baudry’s  later  manner, 
206 

Brown  (Ford  Madox),  169 
his  importance  in  Pre- 
raphaelite  movement, 

149 

its  precursor,  149 
master  of  Rossetti  and 
Hunt,  149 

not  a member  of  the 
brotherhood,  149 
his  distrust  of  cliques, 

150 

birth  and  early  studies, 
150 

pupil  of  Gregorius  and 
Wappers,  150 
working  in  Paris,  151 


290 


INDEX 


Brown — Continued 

influence  of  Delaroche, 

151 

painting  in  open  air,  151 
back  to  bitumen,  151 
voyage  to  Italy,  152 
Holbein,  the  Nazarenes, 
and  the  early  Italians, 

152 

settles  in  England,  152 
English  art  of  that  day, 

152- 153 

stepping  backwards,  154 
Rossetti’s  letter  to,  155 
founding  of  P.  R.  B., 
156 

Preraphaelite  practice, 
161-162 

precursor  of  aesthetic 
movement,  163 
a founder  of  “the  firm,’* 
163 

overshadowed  by  Rossetti 
and  Burne-Jones,  163 
characteristics  of  his  art, 
163-164 
his  death,  149 
his  conscientiousness,  171 
Brown,  works  of 

Mary  Queen  of  Scots 
Going  to  Execution, 
151 

Manfred,  151 
Harold,  152 
Adam  and  Eve,  152 
The  Spirit  of  Justice,  152 
Chaucer  at  the  Court  of 
Edward  III.,  153 
Portrait  of  Mr.  Bamford, 

153- 154 

WyclilFe  Reading  His 
Translation  of  the  Bi- 
ble to  John  of  Gaunt, 
153,  155 

The  Last  of  England, 
160,  162 


Brown — Continued 
Work,  160,  162 
Stages  of  Cruelty,  161 
Cordelia’s  Portion,  163 
Elijah  and  the  Widow’s 
Son,  163 

Decorations  in  Manches- 
ter Town  Hall,  164 
Brush  (George  DeForest), 
147 

Burne-Jones  (Sir  Edward), 
141-142,  163 

influenced  by  Rossetti, 
160 

ridiculed  and  admired, 

176 

weakness  of  early  work, 

177 

development  of  personal 
style,  177 

his  mannerisms  and  mer- 
its, 177-178 
his  archaism,  179-182 
not  a literary  painter, 
179-180 

his  allegories  “ will  not 
bite,”  180 

studies  from  nature,  180 
pastiche,  180 

imitation  of  Mantegna, 
180 

of  Gothic  sculpture, 
181 

of  the  Byzantines, 
181 

a remarkable  creative 
artist,  182 

Burne-Jones,  works  of 
Chant  d’ Amour,  177 
The  Wine  of  Circe,  177 
The  Angels  of  Creation, 
177,  178-179 

The  Mirror  of  Venus,  177 
The  beguiling  of  Merlin, 
177-178,  180 
The  Annunciation,  180 


INDEX 


»91 


Burne-J  ones — Continued 
Dies  Domini,  181 
Sponsa  di  Libano,  181 
Mosaics  in  Church  of 
Holy  Trinity,  Rome, 
181 

Window  in  St.  Peter’s 
Church,  Vere  St.,  Lon- 
don, 181 

Designs  of  the  Seasons, 
189 


Cabanel  (Alexandre),  his  dec- 
orations in  the  Panth6on, 
217 

Caravaggio  (Michelangelo 
Amerighi,  called),  his  influ- 
ence discernible  in  Bau- 
dry’s  “Theseus,”  200 
Carolus  Duran,  260 
Carpaccio  (Vittore),  48 
Cellini  (Benvenuto),  his  opin- 
ion of  Michelangelo’s  “Bat- 
tle of  Pisa,”  34 
his  goldsmith  work,  211 
Chase  (William  Merritt),  147 
Chavannes  (Pierre-Domachin, 
Sieur  de),  212 

Chiaroscuro,  dependent  on 
mystery,  261 

Blake’s  hatred  of,  198 
primitive,  223 
Japanese,  223 
Correggio’s,  56 
Tintoretto’s,  56 
Veronese’s,  70,  75,  76 
Rembrandt’s,  123,  126 
Classic  and  Romantic  tem- 
pers, 26-30,  97-98 
Claude  Gelee,  called  Loraine, 
his  influence  on  Corot,  138 
Colleone,  Verrocchio’s  statue 
of,  285,  286 

Colour,  its  relation  to  natu- 
ralism, 4 


Colour — Contimied 

hipest  beauty  of,  incom- 
patible with  virtuosity, 
260-261 

dependent  on  mystery, 
261 

Composition,  Raphael’s  mas- 
tery of,  77 

Veronese’s  analysed,  78- 
81 

Leonardo’s  science  of,  80 
Baudry’s,  205 
Constable  (John),  151 

influence  of  Rubens 
upon,  103 

transmits  Rubens’s  influ- 
ence to  Fra-ice,  137 
near  his  end,  153 
Copley  ( J ohn  Singleton  ) , 

really  of  English  school, 
144 

Cornelius  (Peter),  152 
Corot  (Jean-Baptiste-Cam- 
ille),  224 

his  art  founded  on 
Claude,  138 

his  study  of  values,  138 
his  poetic  feeling,  138 
Correggio  (Antonio  Allegri, 
called),  37 

his  chiaroscuro  and  affec- 
tations, 56 

influence  on  Prudhon,  136 
and  Baudry,  195,  200 
Courbet  (Gustave),  influence 
of,  on  Whistler  and  Manet, 
231-232,  236 

Couture  (Thomas),  144,  213 


David  (Jacques-Louis),  136 
Davies  (Gerard  B.),  conjec- 
ture as  to  Hals’s  master,  106 
Decoration,  a great  branch  of 
art,  210-211 
problem  of,  212 


INDEX 


Decoration — Continued 

Veronese’s  conception  of, 
75 

as  dependent  on  design 
and  subordination  of 
modelling,  76 
Decoration,  American, 

influenced  by  Puvis  de 
Chavannes,  75 
by  the  Byzantines  and 
Pintoricchio,  76 
beginnings  of,  14-7 
merits  of,  148 
Decoration,  modern. 

Arts  and  Crafts  move- 
ment, 142 
poster  mania,  142 
Degas  (Hilaire-Germain-Ed- 
gard),  139 

Delacroix  (Eugfene),  151 

his  admiration  of  Rubens, 
98 

intellectual  force  of,  136 
breaks  classical  tradition, 
136 

influenced  by  English 
school,  137 

Dewing  (Thomas  W.),  147 
Delaroche  (Paul),  influence 
of,  on  F.  M.  Brown,  151 
Delaunay  (Elie),  his  por- 
traits, 140 

Donatello  (Donato  di  Betto 
Bardi,  called),  3 
his  influence  on  Michel- 
angelo, 32-33 
his  St.  George,  33 
his  Gattamelata,  285 
Dou  (Gerard),  Rembrandt’s 
first  pupil,  118 

Drawing,  by  the  line  or  by 
the  mass,  262 
Michelangelo’s,  38,  205 
Titian’s,  38 
Hals’s,  110,  262 
Rembrandt’s,  125-126 


Drawing — Continued 
TerBorch’s,  188 
Meissonier’s,  188 
Millet’s,  137 

Puvis  de  Chavannes’s  143, 
219,  220,  222 
Baudry’s,  143,  205-206 
Sargent’s,  145,  260-263 
Drolling  (Martin),  194 
Dubois  (Paul),  influenced  by 
Renaissance  sculpture,  3 
his  Florentine  Singer,  3 
his  St.  John  Baptist,  3 
his  Jeanne  d’Arc,  285-286 
Dupr^  (Jules),  249 
Dutch  school,  contempora- 
neity of  subject,  187 

soundness  and  naivete  of 
drawing,  188 

management  of  light,  188 
Rembrandt’s  gift  to,  112 
Dutch  school,  modern,  249 
Diirer  (Albrecht),  his  opinion 
of  Bellini,  49 
the  least  specially  artistic 
of  artists,  82 
his  writings,  82 
dates  of  birth  and  death, 
82 

his  personal  character, 
83-84 

as  religious  reformer, 
85-86 

apostrophe  to  Erasmus, 
85 

Wein,  Weib,  und  Gesang, 
85 

his  curiosity,  86 
Melancthon’s  opinion  of 
him,  86-87 

compared  to  Leonardo, 
87 

theories  of  human  pro- 
portions, 87-89 
reverence  for  numbers, 
88-89 


INDEX 


29S 


Durer — Continued 

slight  sense  of  beauty,  90 
reverence  for  fact,  87,  90 
his  ideal  of  painting,  90 
minuteness,  91 
sureness  of  hand,  91 
anecdote  of,  with  Bellini, 
91-92 

as  engraver,  92-94 
accuracy  and  expressive- 
ness his  aims,  93-94 
the  representative  of  his 
age,  94-95 
Diirer,  works  of 

illustrations  to  the  Apoc- 
alypse, 85 
Melencolia,  93 
Knight  and  Death,  93 

Eastlake  (Sir  Charles),  153 
English  school,  the  influence 
of,  137 

descended  from  Rubens, 
137 

early  American  painters 
a part  of,  144 
in  the  forties,  153 
Equestrian  Statues — 

Colleone,  by  Verrocchio, 
285,  286 

Gattamelata,  by  Dona- 
tello, 285 

Jeanne  d’Arc,  by  Dubois, 
285-286 

Jeanne  d’Arc,  by  Frem- 
iet,  285-286 

Emperor  William,  by 
B6gas,  208 

Sherman,  by  Saint-Gau- 
dens,  unveiling  of,  279 
importance  of,  279 
commission  for,  279 
sketch  for,  280 
exhibited,  280-281 
honours  awarded  it, 
280-281 


Equestrian  Statues — Confd 
preparation  for,  282 
description  of,  283- 
285 

relative  rank  of,  286 
Etty  (William),  153 
Exhibitions,  disadvantages  of, 
212 

influence  of,  140 
Exposition,  Centennial,  144 
Exposition,  1900,  showed  ex- 
istence of  American  school, 
144 

Eyck  (Jan  Van),  90,  249,  263 


Falgui^re  (Jean-Alexandre- 
Joseph),  3,  267 
Femme  Inconnue,  Louvre,  10, 
276 

Fiesole  (Mino  da),  3,  270 
Flesh-painting,  not  compati- 
ble with  great  frankness  of 
handling,  260 

Fourment  (Helena),  her 
marriage  to  Rubens,  101 

in  portraits  and  pictures, 
101-102 

Francia  (Francesco  Raiboli- 
ni,  called),  works  of,  dis- 
liked by  Michelangelo,  28 
Fremiet  (Emanuel),  his 
Jeanne  d’Arc,  285-286 
French  (Daniel  Chester),  in- 
fluenced by  Renaissance 
sculpture,  3 

Frith  (William  Powell),  153 
Fromentin  (Eugene),  137, 
259 

reveals  Hals  to  the  world, 
105 

calls  attention  to  similar- 
ity between  pictures  by 
Rembrandt  and  Hals, 
110 

his  analysis  of  Rem- 


294 


INDEX 


Fromentin — Continued 

brandt’s  genius,  123- 
125 

Fuller  (George),  144 


Gainsborough  (Thomas),  259 
influence  of  Rubens 
upon,  103 

transmits  Flemish  influ- 
ence, 137 

Galland  (P.  V.),  his  decora- 
tions in  the  Sorbonne, 
218 

Gamier  (Charles),  architect 
of  Paris  Op^ra,  196 

Gattemelata,  Donatello’s  sta- 
tue of,  285 

Gautier  (Theophile),  critical 
discrimination  of,  213 

G^rdme  (Jean-Leon),  140 

Ghiberti  (Lorenzo),  32 

Michelangelo’s  praise  of, 
28 

pictorial  effect  of  his  re- 
liefs, 35 

Ghirlandajo  (Domenico  di 
Tommaso  Curradi  di  Doffo 
Bigordi,  called),  19 
master  of  Michelangelo, 
20 

Giorgione  (Giorgio  Barbar- 
elli,  called),  83,  90 
birth  of,  19 
country  born,  68 
reduced  to  myth,  50 

Giorgione,  works  of 

Soldier  and  Gypsy,  50 
Apollo  and  Daphne,  50 
Partie  Champetre,  50 

Giotto  di  Bordone,  19,  143, 
221 

the  simplicity  of  igno- 
rance, 222-223 

Gleyre  (Charles),  master  of 
WhisUer,  231 


Hals  (Frans),  207,  249 

handling  of  compared  to 
Tintoretto’s,  58-59 
modernness  of  his  repu- 
tation, 104 

discovered  by  painters, 
104 

influence  upon  Manet 
and  Whistler,  105 
lack  of  authentic  facts 
about,  105 
date  of  birth,  106 
possibly  studied  first 
with  Van  Noort,  106 
probable  character  of 
early  work,  107 
his  limitations,  107-108 
a pure  portraitist,  108 
compared  to  Titian,  Vel- 
asquez and  Rem- 
brandt, 108 
a realist,  109 

his  ideal  in  his  handling, 
109 

his  certainty  of  touch, 

109 

his  draughtsmanship,  110 
262,  263 

possible  influence  of 
Rembrandt  upon,  110- 
112 

decline  of  his  powers,  113 
last  works,  114 
his  death,  114 
place  in  art,  114 
compared  to  Sargent,  265 
Hals,  works  of 

Banquet  of  St.  Joris’s 
Shooting  Guild  of  1616, 
106 

Banquet  of  St.  Adriaen’s 
Shooting  Guild  of  1633, 

110 

Banquet  of  St.  Joris’s 
Shooting  Guild  of  1639, 

111 


INDEX 


295 


Hals — Contirmed 

Regents  of  St.  Elisa- 
brth’s  Hospital,  110, 
112 

The  Merry  Toper,  111 
Maria  Voogt,  111 
Old  Lady  of  Bridgewater 
Gallery,  111,  112 
Feyntje  van  Steenkiste, 
112 

Regents  of  the  Oude- 
mannehuis,  114 

Handling,  right,  two  kinds 
of,  259 

greatest  brilliancy  of,  in- 
compatible with  finest 
colour  and  light  and 
shade,  261 

the  expression  of  form 
with  the  brush,  262 
Tintoretto’s,  59 
Veronese’s,  67-68 
Rubens’s,  100 
Hals’s,  109,  249 
Velasquez’s,  261 
Baudry’s,  206-207 
Whistler’s,  240,  249 
Sargent’s,  259 

Hay  don  (Benjamin  Robert), 
better  critic  than  painter, 
152 

Heist  (Bartholomew  Van- 
der),  accomplished  medioc- 
rity of,  125 

Hendrick  je  Stoffels,  Rem- 
brandt’s mistress,  120 
uncertainty  as  to  mar- 
riage, 97 

as  model,  117,  121 
in  partnership  with 
Titus,  120 
her  death,  120 

Hilton  (William),  his  abuse 
of  bitumen,  151 

Holbein  (Hans,  the  Young- 
er), 83,  94,  249 


Holbein — Continued 

as  portrait  painter,  95 
influence  of  on  F.  M. 
Brown,  152 

Homer  (Winslow),  national- 
ity and  personality  of  his 
art,  146 

sense  of  weight  of  water, 
147 

figure  pictures,  147 

Hunt  (Holman),  169 

advised  by  F.  M.  Brown, 
149 

the  constant  Preraphael- 
ite,  150 

discovers  Orcagna,  155 
his  account  of  reason  for 
not  electing  F.  M. 
Brown  to  P.  R.  B.,  156 
his  first  studio,  156 
minuteness  of  workman- 
ship, 156 

his  naturalism  and  perse- 
verance, 157-158 
Preraphaelitism  his  natu- 
ral language,  158 
his  small  influence,  159 
his  lack  of  art,  160 
influence  on  Millais,  166 
his  Rienzi,  156 

Hunt  (William  Morris), 
pupil  of  Couture  influenced 
by  Millet,  144 


Impressionism,  its  nature, 
138-139 

its  probable  influence,  139 
its  technique,  249 
Ingres  (Jean-Auguste-Dom- 
inique),  220 

his  hatred  of  Rubens,  98 
influenced  by  Raphael, 
136 

beauty  of  line,  136 
portraits,  136 


296 


INDEX 


Inness  (George),  146 
Insight,  the  portrait  painter’s, 
263-264 


Japanese  art,  shadelessness 
of,  223 

Whistler’s  relation  to, 
236,  240,  244 

Jeanne  d’Arc,  Dubois’s  statue 
of,  285-286 

Fremiet’s  statue  of,  285- 
286 

Jouffroy  (Fran9ois),  his 
atelier j 267 


LaFarge  (John),  on  Michel- 
angelo, 39 

work  of,  in  stained  glass, 
147 

decorative  paintings  by, 
147 

Lairesse  (Gerard  de),  his 
criticism  of  Rembrandt, 
121 

Landscape,  modern,  indebted- 
ness of,  to  Rubens,  103 
extension  of  its  methods 
to  other  branches,  137- 
139 

begins  in  England,  137 
Eastman  (Pieter),  master  of 
Rembrandt,  118 
Lauro  (Agostino),  engraving 
by,  167 

Lawrence  (Sir  Thomas),  con- 
tinues English  and  Fleaa- 
ish  traditions,  137 
Laurens  (Jean-Paul),  his 
decorations  in  the  Pan- 
theon, 217,  219 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  19,  285 
his  Last  Supper,  80 
compared  to  Diirer,  87 
his  many-sidedness,  87 


Da  Vinci — Continued 
letter  to  Sforza,  87 
theories  of  human  pro- 
portions, 87 

indebtedness  to  Vitruvi- 
us, 87 

love  of  beauty,  87-89 
reminiscence  of,  in  Ban- 
dry’s  Fortune,  200 
Lenepveu  (Jules-Eug^ne),  195 
Lotto  (Lorenzo),  51 
Low  relief,  Greek  use  of,  7 
Renaissance  use  of,  7, 
272 

principle  of  applied  to 
sculpture  in  the  round, 
8,  276-277 

deals  with  appearances 
rather  than  with  facts, 
272,  274 

a kind  of  drawing,  273- 
274 

Lyons,  Museum,  decorations 
in,  215 


Maclise  (Daniel),  153 
Majano  (Benedetto  da),  3 
Manchester  town  hall,  decora- 
tions in,  164 
Manet  (Edouard),  145 

influence  of  Hals  and 
Velasquez  upon,  105 
imitation  of  Velasquez, 
139 

influenced  by  Monet,  139 
feeling  for  material,  139 
an  initiator,  208 
influence  of  Courbet 
upon,  231-232 
his  black  manner,  236 
Mantegna  (Andrea),  imita- 
tion of,  by  Burne-Jones, 
180 

Masaccio  (Tomasso  di  Simone 
Guidi,  called),  19 


INDEX 


297 


Masaccio — Continued 

studied  by  Michelangelo* 
20 

Matsys  (Quentin),  83 
Meadows ( Kenny),  153 
Meissonier  (Jean-Louis-Er- 
nest),  140 

his  minute  finish,  183 
the  result  of  near-sight- 
edness, 183-185 
his  early  development, 
186 

homogeneity  of  his  worL^ 
186 

early  work  compared  to 
the  Dutch  school,  187 
his  antiquarianism,  187 
his  draughtsmanship,  188 
lack  of  success  with  col- 
our and  light,  188 
his  industry  and  accura- 
cy, 189 

lack  of  imagination  and 
beauty,  189 

his  later  work,  189-191 
inadequacy  of  his  meth- 
ods to  new  tasks,  190 
the  “ 1814,”  190 
the  “1807,”  190-191 
his  character,  191-192 
Merci6  (Marius-Jean-An- 
toine),  267 

influenced  by  Renais- 
sance sculpture,  3 
Metzu  (Gabriel),  refinement 
of,  121 

Meynell,  Mrs.,  259 
Michel  (Emile),  his  life  of 
Rembrandt,  115 
his  guesses,  116 
mania  for  identification, 
117 

explanation  of  Rem- 
brandt’s realism,  121 
Michelangelo  Buonarotti  Si- 
moni,  67,  114,  137,  285 


Michelangelo — Continued 

contemporary  opinion  of, 
18 

birth  of,  19 

apprenticed  to  Ghirlan- 
dajo,  20 

studies  sculpture  in  Med- 
ici Gardens,  20 
relations  with  Lorenzo  de 
Medici,  20 

studies  Masaccio,  20 
influence  of  Savonarola 
on,  21 

leaves  Florence  the  first 
time,  21 

goes  to  Rome,  22 
works  there,  22 
returns  to  Florence,  22 
called  to  Rome  by  Julius 
II.,  22 

the  “ Tragedy  ” of  the 
Tomb,  23 

the  Sistine  Ceiling,  23 
appointed  architect  to  the 
Vatican,  24-25 
last  years,  25 
death  and  burial,  25 
his  bad  digestion,  25-26 
his  character,  26 
habits,  27 
generosity,  27 
caustic  tongue,  27 
likes  and  dislikes,  28 
impatience  of  collabora- 
tion, 28 
melancholy,  29 
religion,  29 

friendship  for  Vittoria 
Colonna,  29 
a romantic  artist,  29 
contrasted  with  Raphael, 
29-30 

the  contrast  repeated  in 
Rembrandt  and  Ru- 
bens, 30 

his  three  manners,  30 


^98 


INDEX 


Michelan  gelo — Continued 

essentially  a sculptor,  31 
influence  of  Donatello 
upon,  32-33 

of  Jacopo  della  Quercia, 
33 

finish  of  early  work,  33, 
144 

realism,  33 

insignificance  of  heads,  33 
sculpturesque  nature  of 
his  painting,  35 
his  grand  style,  36 
beauty,  37,  123 
female  figures,  37 
as  draughtsman,  38,  205 
as  colourist,  38-39,  64 
his  type  of  the  human 
figure,  40 

picturesqueness  of  later 
sculpture,  40 

dependence  on  light  and 
shade,  41-42 
on  unfinish,  6,  41-42 
reasons  for  this,  43-45 
parts  most  frequently 
unfinished,  44 
modern  imitation,  6,  44 
his  later  paintings,  45-46 
his  relation  to  the  deca- 
dence, 46 

his  destructive  influence, 
46-47,  126 

his  imagination  not  dead- 
ened by  dissection,  129 
imitated  by  Blake,  131 
copies  of  by  Rubens,  99 
by  Baudry,  197,  202 
influence  of,  on  Baudry, 
203 

Michelangelo,  works  of,  in 
painting, 

Doni  Madonna,  22,  31,  34 
Cartoon  of  Battle  of 
Pisa,  22,  34 
Leda,  24 


Michelangelo — Continued 

Sistine  ceiling,  23-24,  36- 
39,  211 

Creation  of  Adam,  37 
Creation  of  Eve,  37 
Libyan  Sibyl,  37 
Last  Judgment,  25,  45 
Frescoes  in  Pauline 
Chapel,  25,  45-46 
Michelangelo,  works  of,  in 
sculpture 

Mask  of  a Faun,  20 
The  Centaurs,  20 
Madonna  in  style  of 
Donatello,  21,  31 
Hercules,  21 
Crucifix,  21  and  note 
Angel  on  Tomb  of  San 
Domenico,  22 
John  Baptist,  22,  31 
Sleeping  Cupid,  22,  31 
Bacchus,  22,  31-32 
Pieta,  22,  32,  33,  40 
Cupid,  22 

Madonna  of  Bruges,  22, 
32 

David,  22,  32,  33,  40,  43 
Bronsse  David,  22 
Pope  Julius,  22 
The  Julian  Tomb,  23,  39, 
40 

The  Slaves,  23,  40 
Moses,  43 

The  Risen  Christ,  24,  43 
The  Medici  Tombs,  24, 
39-42 

Lorenzo  de’  Medici, 
42 

Day,  42 
Evening,  42 

Millais  (John  Guille),  “Life 
and  Letters”  of  his  father, 
170 

Millais  (Sir  John  Everett), 
lack  of  intellectual  influ- 
ence of  on  P.  R.  B.,  157 


INDEX 


299 


Millais — Contimied 

a clever  executant,  157, 
158 

destined  to  success,  158 
his  Preraphaelitism  only 
a period  of  study,  159 

P.  R.  B.  to  P.  R.  A., 
165 

birth  and  parentage,  165 
precocity,  166 
the  brotherhood,  166 
influenced  by  Rossetti 
and  Hunt,  166 
in  the  fight,  166 
first  election  as  A.  R.  A. 

annulled,  166-167 
Academy  capitulated,  167 
early  outgrows  Preraph- 
aelite  methods,  167 
“one  could  not  live  doing 
that,”  168 

transition  period,  168 
Christmas  Graphic  style 
and  election  as  Acade- 
mician, 169 

the  favourite  of  the  pub- 
lic, 169 

because  he  saw  with  its 
eyes,  170 

insensibility  to  purely 
artistic  qualities,  171- 

172 

interest  in  representa- 
tion, 172 

limited  imagination,  172- 

173 

technical  ability,  173 
attempts  at  grand  art, 

173 

success  as  an  illustrator, 

174 

' and  as  a portrait 
painter,  174-175 
Millais,  works  of 

Supper  at  the  House  of 
Isabella,  156,  166 


Millais — Contirmed 
Ophelia,  165 

The  Huguenot,  165,  167, 
172-173 
Bubbles,  165 

The  Carpenter’s  Shop, 
166 

The  Proscribed  Royalist, 
167,  170,  173 

The  Order  of  Release, 

167,  173 

Sir  Isumbras  at  the 
Ford,  168 

The  Vale  of  Rest,  168 
Apple  Blossoms,  168 
The  Black  Brunswicker, 

168,  173 

My  First  Sermon,  169 
Chill  October,  169 
The  Gambler’s  Wife,  173 
Yes  or  No,  173 
The  Yeoman  of  the 
Guard,  173 
Jephthah,  173 
Victory,  O Lord!  173 
Cherry  Ripe,  173 
Illustrations  to  “ Orley 
Farm,”  174 

Millet  (Jean-Fran?ois),  places 
man  in  nature,  137 
his  composition,  colour- 
ing, drawing,  137 
influence  on  W.  M.  Hunt, 
144 

a profound  poet,  208 
the  poverty  of  his  peas- 
ants, 217 

loose  criticism  of,  218 
Monet  (Claude),  143 

his  dissection  of  light,  139 
Moore  (Albert),  anticipated 
by  Whistler,  236 
Moreau  (Gustave),  a French 
Rossetti,  142 

Morris,  Marshall,  Falkner  & 
Co.,  163 


300 


INDEX 


Morris  (William),  160 

repetitions  in  his  verse, 
178 

Mowbray  (H.  Siddons),  148 
Music,  modern,  tends  to  be- 
come pictorial,  231 


Nazarenes,  the,  136 

their  use  of  term  Pre- 
raphaelite,  152,  156 
Near-sightedness,  effect  of, 
on  style,  184-185 
Neo-Preraphaelites,  the,  their 
practice  reverses  Preraph- 
aelite  teaching,  160 
Noort  (Adam  Van),  master 
of  Rubens,  106 
possibly  of  Hals,  106 
Northcote  (James),  his  opin- 
ion of  Hals,  104,  108 


Orcagna,  frescoes  attributed 
to,  their  influence  on  the 
Preraphaelites,  155 
Overbeck  (Friedrich),  152 


Painting,  nineteenth  century, 
characterization  of,  135 
primacy  of  France  in, 
136 

influence  of  exhibitions 
upon,  140 

influence  of  photography 
upon,  140-141 

Palma  (Giacomo,  il  Vecchio), 
his  Santa  Barbara,  50 

Pantheon,  decorations  in,  75, 
148,  195,  204,  214,  216,  217 
decorations  for,  by  Bau- 
dry,  never  painted,  198, 
204 

Paris  h6tel-de-ville,  decora- 
tions in,  148,  215,  216 


Paris  Opera,  decorations  in, 
143,  193,  196-197,  202,  203- 
206 

Parthenon,  the,  211 
figures  from,  42 
the  Ilissus,  37 
friezes  of,  122 

Pennell  (Joseph),  prefers 
Whistler  to  Rembrandt  as 
etcher,  229 

Perspective,  Veronese’s  delib- 
erate falsification  of,  79 
Perugino  (Pietro  Vannucci, 
called),  mystery  about,  11 
Berenson’s  characteriza- 
tion of,  11 

Williamson''s  defense  of, 

11,  12 

bargain  for  burial  of,  12 
employment  by  church, 
12,  13 

Vasari’s  account  of,  14 
his  commercialism,  14 
his  repetitions,  15,  16 
his  excuse,  16 
mannerisms  of,  16 
Michaelangelo’s  dislike  of, 
16,  28 

his  craftsmanship,  16 
his  landscape  painting, 
16,  37 

power  of  expressing 
space,  16,  17 
Perugino,  works  of 

Pazzi  Crucifixion,  12,  15 
San  Severo  Deposition, 
12 

Vallombrosa  Assumption, 
12 

Vatican  Resurrection,  15 
Borgo  San  SepolcrO  As- 
cension, 15 

Florence  Academy  Cruci- 
fixion, 15 

Florence  Academy  As- 
sumption, 15 


INDEX 


301 


Penigino — Contirmed 

St.  Augustine’s  (Siena) 
Crucifixion,  16 

Pheidias,  grandeur  of  female 
figures  by,  71 

nobility  of  his  style,  268 

Photograph,  influence  of, 
140-141 

Pintoricchio  (Bernardino  di 
Betto  Bardi,  called),  mere- 
ly a decorator,  64 
his  influence  on  American 
decoration,  76 

Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood, 
founding  of,  156,  166 
origin  of  name,  156 

Preraphaelitism,  141,  149-164 
its  essential  doctrines,  154 
formulated  by  F.  M. 
Brown,  154 
not  by  Ruskin,  154, 
157 

made  up  of  Hunt’s  real- 
ism and  Rossetti’s  choice 
of  subject,  157,  158,  166 
an  appeal  to  the  boy  or 
the  savage,  161 
its  technical  methods, 
161-162,  170 

becomes  an  aesthetic 
movement,  163 

Prudhon  (Pierre),  influenced 
by  Correggio,  136 
use  of  Wtumen,  136 
power  of  flesh-painting, 
136 

Pordenone  (Gio.  Antonio  U- 
cinio  Regillo  da),  51 

Poster  mania,  142 

Puvis  de  Chavannes  (Pierre- 
Cecile),  148,  196 
his  influence  on  American 
decoration,  75 
his  composition,  143 
his  style  contrasted  with 
that  of  Baudry,  204, 


Puvis — Continued 

a living  influence,  210 
one  of  the  greatest  of 
modern  decorators,  210 
birth  and  family,  212 
early  studies,  213 
attracted  to  study  of 
decoration,  213 
technical  method,  213 
principal  works  and  hon- 
ours, 213-216 
an  art  of  omissions,  216 
should  be  judged  in 
place,  216-217 
decorative  propriety,  217, 
218 

colouring,  218 
his  eliminations  wilful, 
219 

early  work  comparative- 
ly realistic,  219-220 
beauty  of  individual  fig- 
ures, 220 

suppression  of  details 
for  good  o-f  the  whole, 
220-221 

for  self-expression,  221- 
222 

Greek  simplicity  and 
Gothic  sentiment,  222 
his  drawing,  143,  222 
his  imitators,  223 
his  modernity,  223 
use  of  values,  224 
his  landscape,  224 
his  eliminations  some- 
times excessive,  225 
his  manner  not  suited 
to  rich  surroundings, 

225 

his  lesson  to  modern  art, 

226 

his  death,  210 

Puvis  de  Chavannes,  works  of 
Decorations  of  the  Pan- 
theon, 75 


302 


INDEX 


Puvis — Continued 

Decorations  of  Boston 
Public  Library,  75 
Decoration  of  the  Sor- 
bonne  (the  Hemicycle), 
144,  218 

The  Poor  Fisherman,  217 
Infancy  of  St.  Genevieve, 
217-218 
War,  219,  220 
Peace,  219,  220 
Work,  220 
Rest,  220 

Ave,  Picardia  Nutrix, 

220-221 

Ludus  pro  Patria,  221, 
224 

Antique  Vision,  222 
Christian  Inspiration,  222 
The  Sacred  Wood,  222 
Summer,  224 
Winter,  224 

Inter  Artes  et  Naturam, 
224-225 


Quercia  (Jacopo  della),  his  in- 
fluence on  Michelangelo,  33 


Raphael  Santi,  67,  98,  220, 
221 

his  power  of  representing 
space,  17 
birth  of,  19 

influence  of  Michelangelo 
upon,  23 

Michelangelo’s  misunder- 
standing of,  28 
contrasted  with  Michelan- 
gelo, 29-30 
sweetness  of,  37 
relation  to  the  decadence, 
46 

his  mastery  of  composi- 
tion, 77 


Raphael  Santi — Continued 
his  idealism,  88 
influence  on  Ingres,  136 
on  Baudry,  195,  198,  200, 
208 

parallel  with  Baudry,  198, 
199 

an  absorbent,  199 
copies  of,  by  Baudry,  196 
197,  200 

Baudrv’s  judgment  of, 
200-201 

Raphael,  works  of 
The  Disputa,  200 
The  School  of  Athens,  200 
Jurisprudence,  196,  200- 
201 

Relief,  in  painting,  degree  of, 
affected  by  scale,  185-186 

Rembrandt  Harmenz  Van 
Ryn,  58,  64,  151 
compared  with  Michelan- 
gelo, 30 

contrasted  with  Rubens, 
30,  96,  97 

the  legendary  character 
of,  97 

a romantic  artist,  98 
compared  with  Hals,  108, 
114 

possible  influence  on  Hals, 
110-112 

his  gift  to  the  Dutch 
school,  112 

his  present  fame  and  in- 
fluence, 115 

after  long  neglect,  115 
lack  of  real  knowledge  of 
his  life,  115-116 
Michel’s  guesses,  116 
the  system  burlesqued  by; 
Boiton,  116 

his  birth  and  early  stud- 
ies, 118 

settles  in  Amsterdam  and 
becomes  fashionable,  119 


INDEX 


BOS 


Rembrandt — Contirmed 
marriage,  119 
collections,  119 
decline  of  popularity,  119- 
120 

failure  of  eye,  120 
poverty  and  death,  120 
criticisms  of  by  Lairesse, 
121 

Michel,  121 
Br^al,  121-123 
Fromentin,  123-125 
ugliness  of  figures  by, 
121 

his  broad  subjects,  117, 

122 

his  nudes,  121,  122,  123 
beauty  in  ugliness,  122 
indifference  to  form,  123 
love  of  character  and  ex- 
pression, 123 
“ physical  ugliness  and 
moral  beauty,”  123 
his  two  natures,  124 
observer  and  technician, 

124 

dreamer  and  idealist,  124 
dreaming  mal  d propoa, 

125 

final  reconciliation,  125 
not  a colourist,  125 
his  drawing,  125-126 
potential  light  and  shad^ 

126 

the  picturesque  point  of 
view,  126 

chiaroscuro,  123,  126 
his  profound  and  original 
mind,  126 

influence  on  others,  126 
his  etchings  compared 
with  Whistler’s,  229 
Rembrandt,  works  of 
Sobiesky,  117 
St.  Paul  in  Prison,  118 
The  Money  Changer,  119 


Rembrandt — Contirmed 

The  Anatomy  Lesson, 
112,  119 

The  Night  Watch,  119, 
125 

The  Syndics  of  the  Cloth 
Hall,  110,  112,  120,  122, 
125 

The  Gilder,  124 
The  Supper  at  Emmaus, 
72,  124 

Renaissance,  lateness  of,  in 
the  North,  83 

Reynolds  (Sir  Joshua),  174, 
258 

owner  of  a portrait  by 
Hals,  104 

transmits  Flemish  influ- 
ence, 137 

Robbia  (Luca  della),  3 

Rossetti  (Dante  Gabriel), 
141,  159,  163 

pupil  of  F.  M.  Brown, 
149,  155 

his  signature  in  1847,  155 
laughs  at  Hunt’s  discov- 
ery of  Orcagna,  155 
his  early  methods,  156 
an  amateur  of  genius, 
157 

The  Art  Catholic,  158 
his  Preraphaelitism  a 
temporary  phase,  158- 
159 

gives  up  working  from 
nature,  159 

tries  to  learn  to  paint, 
159 

influence  on  Morris  and 
Burne-Jones,  160 
on  Millais,  166 
the  founder  of  a cult,  169 
not  a good  illustrator, 
174 

his  advice  to  Burne-Jones, 
176-177 


804 


INDEX 


H ossetti — Contiimed 

imitated  by  the  latter, 

177 

temporary  influence  upon 
Whistler,  237 
Rossetti,  works  of 

Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin, 
156 

Found,  158 
Lady  Lilith,  159 
Rouen,  Museum,  decorations 
in,  224-225 

Rousseau  (Theodore),  his  art 
founded  on  Rubens  and  the 
Dutch,  138 
his  naturalism,  138 
Rubens  (Peter  Paul),  com- 
pared with  Raphael,  30 
contrasted  with  Rem- 
brandt, 30,  96-97 
as  colourist,  38 
his  lack  of  taste  and  reti- 
cence, 68 

his  accomplishments  and 
splendour,  97 
his  essential  classicism,  98 
his  faults  those  of  his 
time,  98-99 

influenced  by  Titian,  99 
by  Barocci,  99 
his  manner  of  drawing 
deliberately  adopted,  99 
his  fecundity,  100 
his  use  of  assistants,  100 
his  methodicalness,  100 
his  handling,  100 
compared  with  that  of 
Tintoretto,  58-59 
with  that  of  Vero- 
nese, 67 

a precursor,  101 
his  later  work,  101-103 
portraits  of  Helena  Four- 
ment,  101-102 
influence  on  English  por- 
trait school,  102 


Rubens — C ontinued 

on  Watteau,  102 
his  landscape,  102-103 
influence  on  Gainsborough 
and  Constable,  103 
on  nineteenth  centu- 
ry painting,  137 
on  Rousseau,  138 
Rubens,  works  of 

drawings  after  Michel- 
angelo, 99 

Life  of  Marie  de  Medici, 
101 

The  Fur  Pelisse,  102 
The  Garden  of  Love,  102 
Ruskin  (John),  170 

his  theory  of  connection 
of  colour  and  natural- 
ism, 4 

his  admiration  for  Car- 
paccio, 48 

his  idolatry  of  Tintoretto, 
54 

false  description  of  Tin- 
toretto’s “ Baptism,”  55 
his  admiration  for  Vero- 
nese, 63 

not  the  founder  of  Pre- 
raphaelitism,  154,  157 
his  conception  of  Pre- 
raphaelitism,  158,  160 
defends  Millais,  166 
becomes  his  opponent,  168 
Millais’s  characterization 
of,  171 

on  two  kinds  of  handling, 
259 

Saint-Gaudens  ( Augustus  ) , 

influenced  by  Renaissance 
sculpture,  3,  269,  277 
his  birth  and  race,  266 
apprenticed  to  a cameo 
cutter,  266 

studies  in  Paris  and 
Rome,  267 


INDEX 


305 


Saint-Gaudens — Continued 
his  first  important  com- 
mission, 267 

his  feeling  for  individual- 
ity, 270 

earlier  portrait  statues, 
270-271 
reliefs,  272 

their  technical  accom- 
plishment, 274-275,  282 
ideal  figures,  275-276,  282 
virility  and  purity  of  his 
work,  277 

a grave  illness,  279 
his  painstaking,  280 
constant  revision  of  his 
work,  281 

dangers  of,  281-282 
advantages  of,  282 
growth  in  sculptural 
qualities,  283 

Saint-Gaudens,  works  of 

Farragut,  267,  270,  276- 
277 

Randall,  270-271 
Deacon  Chapin,  271 
Butler  Children,  274 
Caryatids  for  house  of 
Cornelius  Vanderbilt, 
275-276 

Angels  of  Morgan  Monu- 
ment, 275,  276 
Bust  of  Sherman,  282 
Statue  of  Sherman,  279- 
286.  (See  Equestrian 
Statues.) 

Saint-Marceau  (Rene  de), 
267 

Sargent  (John  Singer),  birth 
and  training  of,  145 
his  position  and  ability, 
255-256 

an  observer  rather  than  a 
composer,  256-257 
best  when  most  frankly 
modern,  258 


Sargent — Contirmed 

the  realism  of  elegance, 
258 

his  virtuosity,  145,  244, 
258-260 

his  draughtsmanship,  145, 
244,  260-263 

his  eye  for  character,  146, 
263-264 

his  concern  with  aspects, 
264 

John  Sargent,  painter,  265 
compared  with  Hals,  265 
and  Velasquez,  244, 
265 

Sargent,  works  of 
El  Jaleo,  257 
Spanish  Dance,  257 
Carnation,  Lily,  Lily, 
Rose,  257 

Children  of  E.  D.  Boit, 
257 

Lady  Elcho,  Mrs.  Ten- 
ant, and  Miss  Adeane, 
257 

The  Ladies  Alexandra, 
Mary  and  Theo  Ache- 
son,  257-258 
Miss  Daisy  Leiter,  258 
Egyptian  Girl,  262 
Sartoris  (Antoine),  Baudry’s 
first  master,  194 
Saskia  van  Ulenburgh,  wife 
of  Rembrandt,  115 
nothing  really  known 
about,  116 

Bolton’s  nonsense  about, 
116-117 

as  model,  117,  121 
her  marriage,  119 
her  death,  119 

Scale  in  painting,  its  effect  on 
relief,  185-186 
Scheffer  (Ary),  213 
Scheffer  (Henri),  master  of 
Puvis,  213 


306 


INDEX 


Scott  (William  Bell),  his  ac- 
count of  English  art  in  the 
forties,  152-153 
of  the  Preraphaelites,  156 
his  anecdote  of  Millais, 
167-168 

Sculpture,  the  most  positive 
and  simple  of  the  arts,  267 
its  simplicity  also  its  dif- 
ficulty, 268 

Sculpture,  Greek,  its  abstrac- 
tion, 6,  268 

its  simplicity  of  model- 
ling, 222 

Sculpture,  Michelangelo’s,  de- 
pendence of  on  light  and 
shade,  41-42 
on  unfinish,  6,  41-42 
modern  imitation  of,  6, 
44 

Sculpture,  Renaissance,  its  in- 
fluence on  the  moderns,  3, 
266,  269 

its  lowness  of  relief,  7 
applied  to  sculpture  in 
the  round,  8 

illusiveness  of  modelling, 

8,  268,  275 

naturalism  and  intimacy, 

9,  269,  275 

Signorelli  (Luca),  19 

frescoes  at  Orvieto,  35 

Simmons  (Edward),  148 

Sistine  Chapel,  ceiling  of,  23 
24,  36-39,  211 

Sorbonne,  decorations  in,  144, 
215,  218 

Space,  Perugino’s  sense  of, 
16,  17 

Berenson’s  theory  of,  17 
Raphael’s  sense  of,  17 
Veronese’s  suggestion  of, 
78 

Stevens  (Alfred),  virtuosity; 
of,  207 

Stone  (Frank),  153 


Stuart  (Gilbert),  really  of 
English  school,  144 
Swanenburch  (Jacob  van), 
Rembrandt’s  first  master, 
118 


TerBorch  (Gerard),  124 
refinement  of,  121 
naivete  of  his  drawing, 
188 

Thayer  (Abbot  H.),  147 
Tiepolo  (Giovanni  Battista), 
a bastard  Veronese,  60-61 
his  cleverness  and  impu- 
dence, 61-62 
lack  of  gravity,  62 
Tiepolo,  works  of 

Antony  and  Cleopatra,  61 
Ceiling  of  the  Gesuiti,  61 
Ceiling  of  the  Pieta,  61 
Ceiling  of  the  Scuola  dei 
Carmini,  61 

Tintoretto  (Domenico),  58 
Tintoretto  (Jacopo  Robusti, 
called),  51 
his  unevenness,  53 
badness  of  his  bad  pic- 
tures, 53-54 
especially  in  Scuola 
di  San  Rocco,  54- 
55 

great  merit  of  good  ones, 
55-59 

his  colour,  56 
chiaroscuro,  56,  58,  70 
his  female  types,  56 
his  gray  manner,  57 
his  virtuosity,  58 
compared  to  Hals,  Ru- 
bens, and  Velasquez, 

58- 59 

his  use  of  wax  models, 

59- 60 

Veronese’s  portrait  of, 
65 


INDEX 


507 


Tintoretto — C ontinned 

Venetian  birth  of,  68 
compared  to  Veronese  as 
portraitist,  66 
as  chiaroscurist,  70 
as  draughtsman,  71 
his  Michelangelesque  af- 
fectations, 71 
Tintoretto,  works  of 

Miracle  of  St.  Mark,  51, 
58-59 

Massacre  of  the  Inno- 
cents, 55 

The  Annunciation,  55 
Baptism  of  Christ,  55 
The  Crucifixion,  55-57 
Pallas  driving  away 
Mars,  56 

Bacchus  and  Ariadne,  56 
Saints  Jerome  and  An- 
drew, 57 

Saints  Lewis,  Margaret, 
and  George  with  the 
Dragon,  57 

The  Crucifixion  (San 
Cassiano),  57 
Paradiso,  57 
Last  Judgment,  57 
The  Golden  Calf,  57 
Presentation  of  the  Vir- 
gin, 58 

Miracle  of  St.  Agnes,  58 
Marriage  in  Cana,  58 
Titian  (Tiziano  Vicelli),  54, 
56,  57,  83,  102,  108,  203, 

207 

birth  of,  19-20  and  note, 
68 

survives  Michelangelo,  25 
his  drawing  compared  to 
Michelangelo’s,  38 
mediocrity  of  his  works 
in  Venice,  49,  50 
purely  a painter,  52 
lack  of  decorative  feel- 
ing, 52 


Titian — C out  inued 

his  power  of  design,  64 
Veronese’s  portrait  of,  65 
compared  to  Veronese  as 
portraitist,  66 
as  colourist,  70,  74 
his  occasional  coarseness, 
72 

his  influence  on  Rubens, 
99 

imitation  of,  by  Baudry, 
200 

Titian,  works  of 

Doge  Grimani  before 
Faith,  51 

Assumption  of  the  Vir- 
gin, 51 

St.  Mark  and  other 
Saints,  51 
Pieta,  51 

St.  Peter  Martyr,  51 
St.  Lawrence,  51 
The  Annunciation  (San 
Salvatore),  51 
San  Giovanni  Elemosina- 
rio,  51 

Presentation  of  the  Vir- 
gin, 51,  52 

Pesaro  Madonna,  52 
The  Annunciation  (Scu- 
ola  di  San  Rocco),  53 
The  Man  with  the  Glove, 
203 

Titus,  the  son  of  Rembrandt, 
his  birth,  119 
his  partnership  with  Hen- 
drickje,  120 

marriage  and  death,  120 
Trollope  (Anthony),  on  Mil- 
lais’s illustrations  to  “ Orley 
Farm,”  174 

Troy  on  (Constant),  138 
Tryon  (Dwight  W.),  147 
Turner  (Joseph  Mallord  Wil- 
liam), as  author  of  “The 
Fallacies  of  Hope,”  131 


S08 


INDEX 


Turner — Continued 
his  genius,  137 
“the  joke  of  the  public,” 
153 


Uienburgh  (Rombertus),  fa- 
ther of  Saskia,  117 


Values,  Corot’s  study  of,  138 
use  of,  by  Puvis,  2:24 
Van  Dyck,  207 

influence  of,  on  English 
portrait  school,  102 
transmits  influence  of 
Rubens  to  English 
school,  137 

Vasari  (Georgio),  modern  de- 
preciation of,  11 
his  characterization  of 
Perugino,  14 

his  opinion  of  Michelan- 
gelo’s “Battle  of  Pisa,” 
34 

Vedder  (Elhiu),  146 
Velasquez  (Diego  Rodriguez 
de  Silva  y),  96,  174,  207, 
240 

his  handling  compared 
with  Tintoretto’s,  59 
with  Veronese’s,  67 
the  pure  painter,  98 
compared  with  Hals,  104 
108,  114 

preciseness  of  his  early 
work,  107 

his  influence  on  Manet, 
139 

relation  of  his  handling 
to  his  colour,  261 
compared  with  Sargent, 
265 

with  Whistler,  243- 
* 245 

his  abundance,  244 


Velasquez — Continued 

mastery  of  large  can- 
vases, 244 

notation  of  form  and 
brilliancy  of  execution, 
244 

Whistler  plus  Sargent, 
244 

one  of  the  greatest  of 
painters,  245 
Velasquez,  works  of 

The  Surrender  of  Bredd 
(The  Lances),  244 
The  Maids  of  Honour, 
244 

The  Spinners,  244 
Venice,  buildings  of 

Academia  de’  Belli  Arti, 
49,  50,  51 

Church  of  the  Frari,  49 
Church  of  the  Gesuiti,  6 
Church  of  the  Madonna 
del  Orto,  57-58 
Church  of  the  Pieta,  61 
Church  of  San  Cassiano, 
57 

Church  of  San  Georgie 
Maggiore,  54 
Church  of  San  Giovanni 
Crisostomo,  49 
Church  of  San  Salvatore, 
51 

Church  of  San  Zaccaria, 
40 

Church  of  Santa  Maria 
della  Salute,  58 
Fondaco  de’  Tedeschi,  90 
Museo  Civico,  59 
Palazzo  Ducale,  50,  56, 
57,  69 

Palazzo  Giovanelli,  50 
Palazzo  Labia,  61 
Seminario  Patriarcale,  50 
Scuola  dei  Carmini,  61 
Scuola  di  San  Rocco,  53, 
54- 


INDEX 


309 


Vermeer  (Jan,  of  Delft),  re- 
finement of,  121 
Verona,  reminiscence  of  in 
Veronese’s  “ Finding  of 
Moses,”  69 

Church  of  San  Giorgio  in 
Braida,  73 

Veronese  (Paolo  Cagliari, 
called),  52,  60,  127,  221 
inadequate  accounts  of, 
63 

simplicity  and  sanity  of 
his  work,  64 

a master  of  portraiture, 
65-66 

compared  with  Titian  and 
Tintoretto,  66 
not  a painter  of  the  inti- 
mate, 66 

portraiture  of  an  epoch, 
66 

his  impartiality  and  hu- 
mour, 66-67 
his  splendour,  67 
his  mastery  of  handling, 
67-68 

his  abundance,  68 
compared  to  Rubens,  68 
as  landscapist,  68 
tree  drawing,  68 
lack  of  interest  in  wild 
country,  68 

the  landscape  of  cities, 

69 

architecture  and  sky,  69- 

70 

his  treatment  of  light,  70 
his  colour,  70 
his  use  of  cast  shadows, 
70,  75 

his  nobility,  71 
draughtsmanship,  71 
simplicity  of  gesture,  71 
types  of  men  and  women, 

71 

style,  71 


Veronese — Continued 

range  of  subject  and 
treatment,  71-72 
his  manliness  and  lovabil- 
ity,  72 

religious  feeling,  72 
brought  before  Inquisi- 
tion, 72 

type  of  Saviour  contrast- 
ed with  Rembrandt’s, 
72 

the  greatest  of  decora- 
tors, 74 

his  modelling,  75-76 
breadth  of  light,  76 
use  of  local  colour,  76 
design,  76-81 

his  system  of  composi- 
tion, 78 

composition  in  breadth, 
78-79 

suggestion  of  space,  78 
falsification  of  perspec- 
tive, 79 

leading  lines,  79-81 
his  universality,  81 
Veronese,  the  heirs  of,  77 
Veronese,  works  of 

Marriage  in  Cana,  Lou- 
vre, 65,  69,  79,  80 
Marriage  in  Cana,  Dres- 
den, 65,  78,  81 
The  Family  of  Darius  be- 
fore Alexander,  65,  78 
The  Supper  at  Emmaus, 
65,  72 

Cuccina  Family  before 
the  Madonna,  65,  69,  81 
Portrait  of  Daniele  Bar- 
baro,  66 

Rape  of  Europa,  68,  69, 
71,  72 

The  Finding  of  Moses, 
69,  71,  72,  81 
The  Martyrdom  of  St. 
George,  73-74,  81 


810 


INDEX 


Verrocchio  (Andrea),  3,  19 
his  Colleone,  285,  286 
Vivarini,  the,  48 


Walker  (Henry  Oliver),  148 
Walker  (Horatio),  147 
Wappers  (Gustav,  Baron), 
his  method  of  painting,  150- 
151 

W atteau  (Antoine ) , com- 
pared  with  Tiepolo,  61 
technical  method  and  type 
of  subject  founded  on 
Rubens,  102 

bis  “ Embarcation  for 
Cythera,”  102 

Watts  (George  Frederick), 
on  Michelangelo’s  colouring, 
39 

his  dignity  of  style,  142 
Werlf  (Adrian  van  der),  121 
West  (Benjamin),  really  of 
English  school,  144 
"Whistler  (James  McNeill), 
255 

his  sneer  at  Rubens,  101 
influence  of  Hals  and 
Velasquez  upon,  105 
character  of  his  art,  145 
as  etcher,  229 
preferred  by  Pennell  tO 
Rembrandt,  229 
variety  of  subject,  230 
limitations  of  range,  230 
his  “Ten  O’clock,”  230 
elimination  of  representa- 
tion, 230,  247 
his  painting  becomes  mu- 
sical, 231,  247 
his  titles,  231 
temporary  influence  of 
Courbet  upon,  231-232 
tentative  works,  233-234 
romanticism,  234 
fulness  of  colour,  234 


Whistler — Continued 

his  personality  definitely 
announced,  235 
division  of  space,  grace 
of  line,  delicacy  of 
tone,  235 
preludings,  236 
early  masterpieces,  236- 
240 

first  appearance  of  the 
butterfly,  236 
uncertainty  of  dates,  237 
the  period  of  balance,  237 
physical  beauty,  238 
rendering  of  objects, 
239-240 

perfection  of  handling, 

240 

the  great  portraits,  241- 
243 

banishment  of  accessories, 

241 

the  variations  of  gray, 
241 

human  character,  242-243 
comparison  with  Velas- 
quez, 243-245 
and  the  Japanese,  244 
his  most  complete  works, 
245 

later  portraits,  245-246 
arrangements,  nocturnes, 
marines,  246-251 
the  city-dweller,  246 
progressive  vagueness, 

247 

originality  of  his  art, 

248 

its  refinement,  248 
subtlet}^  of  colour,  249 
fineness  of  line,  249 
elusiveness  of  handling, 

249 

pastels,  251-252 
their  extreme  slightness, 
251 


INDEX 


31 


Whistler — Continued 

the  ultimate  term  of  his 
development,  252 
the  slenderness  of  his 
achievement,  252-25S 
probable  permanence  of 
his  reputation,  253 
his  influence  and  his  im- 
itators, 253-254 
Whistler  Memorial  Exhibition 
at  Boston,  227 
its  completeness,  228 
Whistler,  works  of 

Portrait  of  his  Mother, 

227,  237,  241,  242,  243, 
252 

Portrait  of  Carlyle,  227, 
237,  241 

Portrait  of  Miss  Alexan- 
der, 227-228,  237,  241 
Portrait  of  Rosa  Corder, 

228,  237,  241,  243 

The  Fur  Jacket,  228,  245 
Portrait  of  himself,  231- 

232 

Coast  of  Brittany,  232, 

233 

The  Blue  Wave,  232,  233, 

234 

The  Thames,  232,  233 
The  Building  of  West- 
minster Bridge,  233-234 
The  White  Girl,  233,  235 


Whistler — Continued 

The  Little  White  Girl. 

236,  238-239,  252 
Symphony  in  White,  No. 
3,  236 

Princesse  du  Pays  de  la 
Porcelaine,  236 
The  Music  Room,  236, 
239-240 

The  Balcony,  237,  240- 
241,  252 

Comte  de  Montesquiou- 
Fezensac,  246 
L’Andalousienne,  246 
Le  Petit  Cardinal,  250 
Symphony  in  Violet  and 
Blue,  250 

Blue  and  Silver — Trou- 
ville,  250 

Cremorne  Lights,  250 
The  Falling  Rocket,  250 
Gray  and  Silver — Chelsea 
Embankment,  250 
Blue  and  Silver — Batter- 
sea Reach,  250 

Wilkie  (Sir  David),  his  use 
of  bitumen,  151 
Williamson  (George  C.),  his 
defence  of  Perugino,  11 
Woolmer  (Thomas)  , out  of 
place  in  P.  R.  B.,  157 
Wyant  (Alexander),  146 


GETTY  RESEARCH  INSTITUTE 


3 3125  01214  3158 


